


Can't Sit Still

by wilteddaisy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alcohol, Auror Harry Potter, Auror Pansy Parkinson, Auror Ron Weasley, Background Relationships, Bickering, Bisexual Harry Potter, Enemies to Lovers, HP: EWE, Infidelity, Jealousy, M/M, Magical Homes, Post-War, Powerful Harry, Quidditch, Recreational Drug Use, Sexual Content, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, Stag Nights & Bachelor Parties
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-04-16 14:00:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 193,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14166432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wilteddaisy/pseuds/wilteddaisy
Summary: Five years after the war, Harry finds himself drawn to Draco Malfoy by memories that aren't his own.Or, in which Harry hates his Auror partner, Draco flips houses, Pansy sleeps around, Hermione is a magical creatures’ justice warrior, Blaise is getting married, and Ron is just along for the ride.





	1. Chapter 1

“Blaise. What a lovely surprise, truly.”

There is no bite to Narcissa Malfoy’s tone as she speaks, much to Blaise’s own surprise, as she welcomes him through the doors of the Manor. Draco’s mother had never been particularly fond of him, and Blaise had a feeling it was because he was one of the few members of what was once Draco’s posse who’d refused to bend with relentment to his every will and kiss his feet. Blaise would rather kiss his own arse first, thanks, before worshipping the ground on which Draco Malfoy walked (cc: Vincent and Greg). This was nothing against him, of course. He loved Draco. They were simply equals in his eyes. Draco had always denied his mother’s foolishness, claimed that she had nothing against Blaise, probably because he’d grown to realize that it was a bit embarrassing to think that his mother still thought the world to revolve around his white-blond head and that she should scorn anyone who refused to exist in this particular solar system. Blaise knew she did, though. 

Right then, however, nothing in Narcissa’s pale, finely-lined face makes Blaise feel even the slightest bit unwelcome. He feels a bit too welcome, actually — are those tears of joy in her eyes? — because the warmth from her gaze is something to which he’s not accustomed. Damn. The flow of visitors to Malfoy Manor as of late must truly be as sparse as he’d expected. Just his noncommittal presence prompts Narcissa to look at him the way she’d watch in awe as her son on the pedestal in Madam Malkin’s had his robes fitted that one time Blaise had tagged along. It’s unnerving. Then again, he isn’t there to have a tearful reunion with Narcissa.

“Yeah,” he says lamely, offers an emotionless half-smile that has the frail woman before him beaming. He never tries too hard to please, but at that moment, he thinks he could track mud into Narcissa’s immaculate home and she’d thank him for the mess he’d brought inside. He only then notices the displeased noises of an overeager house-elf trying to take his coat for him, and hastily removes it, frowning and dropping it into the elf’s hands. He could stay down here, offer Narcissa company, eat a finger sandwich and make light chit-chat about her desolate post-war life, but alas, Blaise lacks in patience or sympathy. For her, at least. “Draco?” is the next word he utters, raising an eyebrow as he glances toward the marble staircase.

Narcissa’s composure crumbles, just a wee bit, as if she had indeed been expecting to have tea with her son’s friend, but she maintains her watery smile as she nods toward the stairs affirmatively. “In his bedroom. Let me know if you need anything, Blaise. Stay as long as you’d like.”

Blaise nods right back but says nothing, turning on his heel on the recently-waxed floors to head toward and up the stairs, down a familiar hall of haughty-faced portraits toward the chambers of Draco Malfoy. He doesn’t knock as he enters, and his eyes are drawn immediately to Draco, seated on a black, velvety chaise with a book in his hands cracked open to the very middle. Blaise arches a brow and shuts the door behind him, hands sliding into his trouser pockets as he traipses toward Draco, who’s setting the book down and rising up with an odd, tentative smile on his face. 

“You really think I’m going to believe you were sitting here reading this whole time, and not stalking me as I came through the gates and down your hellishly long drive?” he says dryly. It successfully brings a scowl to Draco’s face, the kind that makes his nose wrinkle a bit in distaste, which suits him much better than the look he’d been wearing before, Blaise thinks.

“Shut up, Blaise. Can’t even let a shameful, exiled man pretend he’s not desperately in need of your company?” Draco shoots back, eyes narrowed. But they embrace as soon as they’re close enough — Draco’s arms around Blaise’s neck, Blaise’s around Draco’s waist. He feels thinner, Blaise thinks without shock, and he’s dressed smartly in a black jumper and ironed trousers as if he’s allowed to leave the grounds of the Manor and actually interact with Wizarding civilization. As commonplace as Mugglewear is becoming, Blaise doesn’t know why he’d thought he’d find Draco clad in what Muggles wear when they shut themselves up inside all day — joggers, he thinks they’re called. Why, though? Hardly anybody jogs in them. 

Draco’s pointy chin digs into Blaise’s shoulder, and he can feel the tension in the bones under Blaise’s hands dissipate as Draco sighs warmly against his neck, puts some of his weight against him. “Fuck,” he thinks he hears him mutter. “Forgot what other people smelled like. I’ve begun to resent Mother’s perfume. Even that usually heinous fragrance of Pansy’s she claims is expensive smells like heaven to me.”

Blaise rolls his eyes and draws back slowly, taking Draco’s wan face in his hands and feeling nails dig into his shoulders as the other reluctantly lets go of him. He pats Draco a bit too firmly on his cheek. “You’re depressing me,” he states, and releases him to gently shove Draco back down onto the chaise by his shoulders. He takes a seat beside him, gets comfortable, manspreads. “You look fucking awful, too.” Draco’s watching him right back, and he receives a sardonic smile in return for his compliments.

“Yes, well. I feel it, too. My pores and lungs are filled only with the dust in the nooks and crannies of this house ridden with the hair and skin of ten generations of Malfoys. It’s clearly doing wonders for me.” Draco runs a hand inelegantly through his hair, a movement Blaise is certain he’s never seen Draco execute before. “It’s also been three weeks since I’ve seen Pansy, and five since you last came. I don’t know when the two of you decided to become avidly devoted to academics or extracurriculars at our bloody school, especially in your eighth year, but that’s the only thing of worth that I can possibly think of to rival visiting one’s dear friend on the weekends, who — did I mention? — is subject to indefinite house arrest.” Draco’s eyes don’t leave Blaise’s once, and that gives him hope. The fire in him might be a bit dimmer, but at least it’s capable of flaring up with the right provocation. “Do you know what, though, Blaise? I don’t believe it should even begin to rival that, th —“

Blaise sighs loudly enough to stall Draco’s train of thought, and if that’s not enough, he reaches out to smush his forefinger against his mouth, just to ensure he’s actually shut him up. “Yeah, yeah, it’s all terribly sad. But your sentence isn’t indefinite, you dramatic fucking sod, and I’d say lazing around doing bugger all for two years is a better alternative to rotting beside your father in Azkaban.” He removes his finger from Draco’s pursed lips when he knows he won’t protest, and strokes his knuckles affectionately over his cheek before dropping his hand to his thigh with a loud clap. “And since you’ve brought her up... You know Pans and I love you, Dray, but your bemoaning your terrible fate and your tantrums are the few things we don’t love.” He pinches Draco’s cheek again, just because he can, dodging the indignant smack that Draco shoots at his offending hand. “The rest of you’s alright, though,” Blaise adds, cracking a smile.

Draco deflates subtly in the way he always does when he knows he’s in the wrong. Subtly, yes, because Blaise doesn’t think a stranger could notice. Draco is still brilliant at building walls around himself, it seems. Whether that’s sad or promising, Blaise isn’t sure. “Sickens me to say you’re right,” Draco murmurs a moment later, slumping against the chaise and lacing his fingers together in his lap, head tilted up in the direction of the intricate crown molding that frames the vaulted ceiling. “I’m a terrible, mean bore, yes, yes. Ta ever so. And I’m miraculously blessed to still have you two.” He frowns. “But I did miss you. _Do_ miss you. I just sit in here all day, wasting away, my potential quashed by my spurned family name and legal sentence. And I can barely even see my fucking friends.”

He watches Draco’s eyes close, and Blaise shifts on the chaise so he can absently stroke his fingers through the neatly blunt fringe that falls across his forehead. He wonders if Draco’s picturing it, too, pretending they’re lounging in the Slytherin common room by the fire, and Pansy’s somewhere at their feet with her nose in a gossip magazine wedged into the unconvincing disguise of her Advanced Transfiguration textbook. 

"You should be proud. The Wizengamot considered you enough of a threat to the student population to keep you from returning to your studies.”

Draco snorts, and Blaise watches his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows. “Right. First I fail to kill Dumbledore. Then, I…” He goes silent for a moment, smiling almost bitterly after a beat. “Mm. My Death Eater résumé is pitifully short. I don’t think I managed to actually accomplish a single threatening feat. I mean, thank Merlin for that, but I don’t think I could bring harm to the student population even if I wanted to.”

“The old coot still died, though. And you messed with Bell… And Weasley. Even if by accident. And you let Death Eaters into Hogwarts.”

“Bloody hell, Blaise, I know I’m not innocent. I just wish I could move on, too, and frolic around a big, stone castle turning blue jays into serviettes and pretend nothing ever happened.” He falls silent, as does Blaise, fingertips brushing Draco’s sunken temple.

“It’s no walk in the park over there, either, Dray,” Blaise says eventually, voice surprisingly soft as it comes out. “The place is good as new — better, even, after the summer’s reno — but there’s, like… Still this weird tension in the air. S’pose that happens to stick ‘round after a tragic battle and all, what with the school only opening up again a few months later. Pansy’s told you, though. There’s only a handful of Slytherins there. In total, I mean. Much less in eighth year. Nobody looks twice at us. Only the professors are somewhat just, but it’s their job to be fair… generally. God, Dray, I haven’t had a good shag in so fucking long.” He watches Draco’s nose crinkle again, much to his own amusement. “Pansy’s never in the mood and all the daft, blonde Hufflepuffs who’d gladly have slept with me a year ago look at me like I’m not inhumanly handsome and filthy rich. Both of which, since I last checked, I still am. And Potter’s as venerated as ever. He’s got all my Huffepuffs, mate. Walking around like he’s — what’s that Muggle term? — Playboy? Like he’s the bloody Playboy of Hogwarts. Swear someone’s gonna erect a monument of him in the courtyard. If it’s not the Headmistress doing it, it’ll be his merry band of fanatics.”

“Oh, _boo hoo_ , so you haven’t been getting any pussy. Wow, Blaise. You know, when you started out all judicial, I was genuinely expecting a valid argument about how poorly you were being treated at school, ready to be put in my rightful, ungrateful place. But no, instead you’re mad that Potter’s doing what Potter always does — hog the bloody limelight. Why are you even surprised? Anyway, I’m glad for it. Not for Potter’s shenanigans, but for your dry spell. I was actually beginning to worry for you back at school. Thought you were sex-addicted.” 

Blaise’s cheeks go a little warm, but his countenance doesn’t betray him, nor do his fingers halt their gentle motions through Draco’s hair. It’s a bit icier in color, but nearly the same shade as that of Paloma Bexley, one of his Hufflepuff ex-flings in the year below them. Softer to the touch, even. He snorts, then realizes he’s neglected to reply to Draco’s retort when his gray eyes flutter open beneath his fringe and fixate on Blaise. He can just barely see his brows rise up challengingly under the curtain of his platinum fringe. Blaise smirks slightly. 

“Circe grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,” he huffs. “I deny nothing. I’m merely ranting to your listening ear. Fuck if I don’t deserve to squeeze in a rant somewhere between your whines and lamentations.” When Draco cracks a smile, Blaise can’t help but mirror it.

“A statue of Potter, though, hm? That’d certainly be interesting. It’d basically be an invitation for vandalism, though. In fact, after my quarantine is over, even if I do go out of my way to study and sit for some NEWTs, I’d have to be reborn to a humble half-blood family with a different name to get a job anywhere in England. So perhaps I’ll become a professional vandal. Like that Muggle artist. Bamsy? Spanksy? I could sneak onto the school grounds, transfigure statue-Potter’s nose into a massive cock, or maybe an ickle one, to match the one down below…” The only reason Draco’s barrage of chatter wears off is because his lips go slack. Blaise’s brows draw together, because he realizes that while he’s been watching Draco speak, his own fingertip has evidently embraced some newfound sovereignty from his brain and the rest of his body, as it currently trails lightly across the pale pink of Draco’s lower lip. He halfheartedly intends to intervene, but then Draco’s lips quirk up at one side, and he opens his mouth just so, tongue coming up to press lightly against the pad of Blaise’s finger. And then he closes his mouth, tongue still pliant under Blaise’s finger, lips soft around it, the ridges of his teeth just barely holding it there. Blaise tries to swallow, but he can’t for some reason, and when he clears his throat, it echoes in Draco’s cavernous, dimly-lit bedroom. He draws his finger away, now glossy and wet, the motion of which inadvertently leaves a damp trail on Draco’s chin. Draco’s chin, above which Draco is now smiling wryly, his entire body motionless and slack against the chaise in a way that still appears impossibly poised, fingers laced over his stomach, his ankle propped up against his knee.

“My, my. You _are_ a horny, sex-addicted wanker,” is what Draco says next through a light chuckle of delight as he sits up somewhat, and in the process slides closer to Blaise. Not by much, but just enough. Blaise raises an eyebrow, but his attention is remains on Draco’s mouth. “Didn’t even know you swung my way, Blaise. Guess you just had to be desperate enough, huh? I mean, you were desperate enough to fuck Pansy somewhere down the line, but never me. I’m flattered, honestly. Your standards are quite high, I’ve noticed —“

“Honestly, shut your fucking mouth, Draco. I’m no poofter.”

“Never said you were a poofter, though, did I? Just echoed your sentiments of desperation from minutes ago.” Draco’s head cocks to the side as he speaks, a smug look on his face. It’s infuriating. Infuriatingly sexy. Blaise narrows his eyes. He’d had his suspicions in third year, been certain of it in fourth year when he’d watched Draco dance awkwardly with his date from Beauxbatons at the Yule Ball, long before Draco had actually come out as gay to Pansy in fifth year. Blaise had only ‘found out’ several months later due to a slip of the tongue. Pansy had been perhaps too loyal of a beard for Draco for the short time they played at dating; no one had seen through it other than him. Blaise would be lying if he claimed he hadn’t thought about it at least once. About Draco. But that was back when he’d been inundated by Hufflepuffs with big, soft breasts and airy, melodious giggles. He’d had no reason to act. Plus, back then, Draco had possessed a maddening tendency to flip like a switch to an annoying, obsessive state, the focal point of which had usually been Potter. It’d been a turnoff, to say the least. Blaise coughs slightly, because now Draco’s got a lilting smile on again, just a bit of his teeth showing. And he feels out of his element, but filled with desire regardless.

“I’m not a poofter,” he says again, feeling like a dimwit, possibly sounding like one.

“I know.”

“I don’t like dick.”

“Should count yourself lucky I do.”

“Don’t expect me to suck your dick.”

Draco laughs sharply. “Oh, so now I’m the one with expectations? It’s not as if you were the one checking me out just now, nope. That’s been forgotten. You’ve managed to Obliviate yourself, yes. Very impressive.” Blaise watches Draco drag his teeth over his lower lip, where he’d just touched him, make it turn white under the pressure. “I hope this is of comfort to you, Blaise; I never, in the span of my young life, would have _ever_ expected to see you on your knees for anyone at all. Not now. Not ever.”

Surprisingly enough, this does comfort him — or at least Blaise thinks it does, because he’s giving into the involuntary movements again, his hand gravitating to the side of Draco’s neck, thumb digging right into the spot where he can feel Draco’s pulse thudding through his tender skin. At the touch, Draco makes a soft, close-mouthed noise in his throat. He’s gazing at Blaise with his chin tipped up slightly, but only because his neck is relaxed, gray eyes half-covered by his heavy, pinkish-veined eyelids. Blaise makes an educated guess that Draco has been just as, if not more, lonely than him. Educated guess indeed — he’s performing a rather scholarly analysis of Draco’s body language, how responsive he is to Blaise’s few touches. It was very seldom that anyone flaunted their queerness at Hogwarts, and Blaise highly doubts that Draco has seen any sort of action the past year while in the company of the Dark Lord, the Death Eaters, and now, his mother and a few house-elves. Blaise, in all his glory in front of Draco, probably looks as much the part of a gift from Eros as Draco and his pale, soft hair and pale, soft lips do to Blaise at that moment.

“Dray,” Blaises mumbles, just a breath and a movement of his lips, and his lips curve into a satisfied smile when Draco responds with a hum and tilts his chin down just enough to brush his mouth against Blaise’s wrist, eyes on his face through his straw-like eyelashes. “Do us both a favor, yeah?”

And then Draco’s grasping his wand from the chaise beside him and gesturing it wordlessly toward his bedroom door, where the lock clicks shut audibly. He looks for a moment like he might kiss Blaise, like he really, really wants to, but instead he slinks off the chaise and finds his way between Blaise’s spread legs, dexterous fingers weaving underneath his robes to find the fly of his trousers. He’s on his knees, tongue between his teeth in sweet concentration, and Blaise slumps further, arm along the top of the couch as he props his head up in his hand to keep watch on Draco. His free hand finds its way to Draco’s hair again, weaving his fingers into it mindlessly as he lifts his arse from the chaise just long enough to allow Draco to drag his trousers down in a hurry. Blaise hears Draco’s breathing pick up at this point, and he smiles to himself. He knows he’s a well-endowed sight in boxer briefs, now more than ever because he’s been getting harder since the moment Draco suckled on his damn finger. 

“Get on with it,” he jabs teasingly, his thumb brushing across Draco’s forehead as he rakes his hair away from his face again. Draco seems to regain control, and then everything happens in a rush — he peels Blaise’s briefs down his strong, lithe thighs, lets his cock spring free, and then clambers to get his hands on him, his mouth around him, and then Blaise is groaning, because he wonders how much cock Draco has sucked, and somehow the alternatives of ‘a lot’ and ‘only him’ both make his insides stir and his dick twitch against the pressure of Draco’s tongue just below, his lips wrapped around him. Blaise thinks it’s the former, though, because it only takes Draco a few seconds to get a taste for him and take him further into his throat, Draco’s thumbs pressed into the firm muscle above Blaise’s hipbones. It’s a delicious feeling, looking down to find the pallid tip of Draco’s nose pressing into his pubes, to hear the harsh breaths through his nose, to feel Draco’s ardour to please as he bobs his head over his pulsing cock. Blaise licks his lips, sings soft, meaningless praises through his stifled groans like ‘that’s good, Dray’ and the occasional, elegant ‘fucking hell.’ And then Draco’s pulling off, lips and the areas around his eyes slightly red, and he’s toying with the head of Blaise’s cock, thumbing at his slit and sucking on it in a way that makes Blaise wonder if Draco’s become a master of nonverbal wandless magic in his exile. Blaise comes without so much as a warning, which is a bit rude and crass, but he’d been expecting to last a bit longer. Half of it spatters across Draco’s chin, half makes it in his mouth, and Draco’s cool-toned but warm gaze meets his own as he forces down a swallow, an action that tugs threateningly below Blaise’s navel. Draco pants and sits back on his haunches, grabbing his wand and vanishing the spunk from his face with a rather hoarse _Evanesco_ , before Blaise can do something tempting like reach out and smear it across his mouth, force him to taste it again, as if they were lovers and not friends-gone-fuck-buddies-within-the-past-quarter-of-an-hour.

Draco hasn’t taken his eyes off Blaise, and a satiated, weary smile finally appears on his face. “You taste vile, Zabini,” he mutters, then leans forward onto his knees to drag Blaise’s briefs and trousers up rather haphazardly, leaving his softening cock still pretty much just hanging the fuck out as he gets onto his feet.

“Can’t say that to a bloke who took three Floos and an Apparition to come see you.” Blaise remains breathless while he tracks Draco’s refined movements, the smoothing out of his black jumper and the dusting off of the knees of his trousers.

“Mm. And I just blew you in compensation. Are you never satisfied?” Draco tuts. Blaise has to scramble to tuck himself in and zip up, though, because there is a sudden rap on the door — toward which Draco strides instantly without checking on the state of Blaise, the twat — followed by a muffled _“Young Master Draco? Iggy is bringing sandwiches and refreshments for you and for Master Zabini!”_ Draco opens the door just as Blaise does up his trousers, allowing Iggy the house-elf to shuffle inside and place a ritzy tray of juice pitchers, sandwiches, pastries, and tea on the coffee table. Iggy smiles at Draco in a way that makes his massive, sparkling eyes squint as he bows out of the room before he can even take note of the sheen of sweat on Blaise’s forehead. He releases a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, and eyes Draco warily, who is pouring himself a glass of juice and gulping it down, one hand on his hip. “Much better,” he says as he lowers the empty glass, and locks eyes with Blaise, sharing with him a knowing smile that takes Blaise only a few seconds to reciprocate.


	2. Chapter 2

_Five years later_

It’s the real estate section. Draco tells that to Blaise every time he rips on him for having the _Prophet_ delivered to his house every morning — which is most days. He subscribes to the _Daily Prophet_ because of their real estate section, because Draco likes to have the option to appreciate a magical estate every now and then, even if those estates are bound to the pages of the gossip columns that had once been so passionate about tracking his every move. It had amused Draco, in all honesty. Some poor no-names had been tasked with photographing him at a haberdashery or out to coffee with Pansy, and then soliloquizing about how Draco had shied away from the hands of the Muggle-born haberdasher measuring him for new dress robes, or undertipped the Muggle-born waitress as a ploy to assert both his economic and blood superiority. Yes, the Draco from the pages of the _Prophet_ had always been quite conniving, when in reality the haberdasher’s hands had been cold, and the statement about undertipping was a pure lie. He wishes he could be as entertainingly petty as _Prophet_ -Draco. He hasn’t even graced the pages of the _Prophet_ in months, though, both to his dismay and relief. But he’s quite content with the real estate section. In today’s edition, for example, there’s a charming mansion in Pott Shrigley with lovely, green grounds begging Draco to attend its walkthrough, begging to inspire him. Draco sits in the dining room at the table laden with breakfast. He blindly reaches for his cup just barely after Iggy finishes topping off his tea, and the house-elf lets out a frightened squawk when he realizes he’s overfilled Draco’s cup and half of it goes sloshing over the rim, onto the floor and onto Draco’s arm.

His nostrils flare as he shoots a look at the elf. The hot tea seems to sizzle on the skin of his left forearm, right against the head of the fading serpent on his skin. “You blind bat,” he mutters almost fondly, watches Iggy scramble to save the carpet from staining, and slumps back into his chair with the cup at his lips. 

And then a headline in the gossip column catches Draco’s eye, and he archly raises an eyebrow. It’s nearly as amusing as his own supposed plans to destroy the Wizarding proletariat. “Wonders never cease, do they, Iggy?” he snorts. (“ _No, Master Draco_ ,” comes Iggy’s clueless, mechanical yet eager reply). Blurry as the photographs are, their subject is too ubiquitous to be indiscernible. It’s Potter on a beach, swim trunks unsettlingly low around his hips, one muscular arm around a vaguely familiar witch. His other arm is muscular, too, of course. He’s somehow managing to hold a drink in each hand, though, and his hair looks spectacularly messy, probably because he looks spectacularly sloshed, wobbling and laughing against the dancing girl. He rolls his eyes and tears out the gossip pages, dropping them to the floor with instinctual dramaticism, and smiles instantly as the action reveals his beloved real estate section once again. “You know, Mother, I’ll don’t think I’ll ever understand why Potter’s scandalous social life is the opiate of the masses. Everybody adores him, bows down for him, relishes seeing him act like the imbecile he is. And somehow, at the end of the day, it’s the fact that ‘the Savior has a new lady friend’ or ‘the Savior has locked up some petty thief’ that helps our kind sleep at night, contented with our banal lives.” Draco gazes reverently at a shot of the living room of the home in Pott Shrigley, empty and spacious, and Draco can picture it decorated in an airy but baroque fashion. It’s after several seconds of silence that Draco notices his mother is not, in fact, in the room, though a glance at the clock tells him it’s nearing half-nine. Narcissa is at the breakfast table promptly at a quarter to eight every morning. Or usually is. He reflects that she had acted rather strangely the night before, kissed Draco too many times on the forehead and once on the mouth before she’d turned in for the night. He stares at her empty seat at the other end of the table. Perhaps she’s ill. “Iggy, send Tilly up to check on Mother, will you?”

***

It’s ironic, Harry thinks, that the biggest of all the shit to have gone down in the five years since the War is the shit that goes down while he is on his five-day mandatory leave from the Auror Department. Robards had dubbed it a ‘holiday,’ but it was a leave, was what it really was. _You can’t work seventy-hour weeks, Harry, you can’t steal other Aurors’ cases from right under their noses because they show up two minutes late to their own summons, Harry, you can’t tell the Aurors-in-training shadowing you that you’ll lie for them and put their name on the case even if they don’t show up because you’re better off without them, they slow you down…_ Harry found none of it reasonable, but he’d quite literally been refused entrance to the Ministry the few times he’d attempted to return to work on the first day of his leave. The telephone booth had thrown him out into the street on his back even when he’d stated his name to be Ronald Weasley, the toilets had merely soaked his shoes down to the sock when he’d tried to flush himself in. Thus, it is after several futile tries that Harry decides he will make the most of the four and a half remaining days of forced leave, and takes his recent fling, Danica Dawlish from the Department of Magical Education, on an impulse trip to Mykonos. It’s the most in-character thing he’s done in all his years of being the _Prophet_ ’s favorite Savior-And-Casanova.

Harry is still mildly hungover as he traipses into the Auror Headquarters the following Monday. It’s a surprisingly pleasant return — everyone is whispering about something or other, clustering in groups around desks and the memo board. No one has yet to assault him with a shrill greeting, a jocular ‘long time no see, Potter,’ or even an assignment. He’s not as pleased about the latter as he is the former, but he thinks the momentary silence is a welcome break to his pounding, heavy head. Easing down into his chair in his cubicle, he sighs and scans the room in a slight daze until he hears a familiar _“Harry?”_ from behind, and then Ron Weasley’s sitting on the edge of Harry’s desk, clutching what appears to be three days’ worth of newspapers. Ron studies him in silence, then hugs the newspapers to his broad chest. Harry arches an eyebrow. He thought at least Ron would be able to muster up a friendly “hello” for him even in the midst of the clear bustle in the Department.

Harry rubs at his eyes underneath his glasses. “Hello, Ron. S’good to see you. Say, how have you been this past week, considering it’s the longest I’ve gone without seeing you since your ridiculous promise-ring honeymoon?” he asks monotonously, hands falling to his lap as he fixes Ron with a blank gaze. Ron’s tension eases a bit as he rolls his eyes, fingers still shifting around the thick stack of newspapers against his chest.

“Alright, alright, mate. Good to see you, too. Don’t think I need to ask about Greece, though. Saw the pictures, Harry.” His smile is careful, but wry. “Danica back today, too?”

Harry nods. “I’m a bit worse for wear than her, though, I think.”

Ron laughs. “Nah, mate. Fresh as a honking daffodil.” He seems to expect Harry to respond with something more than just a guilty smile, though, because that tense look is back on his face again, and he clears his throat. “Really ‘aven’t heard then, have you? I know you’re sort-of seeing Danica, and all, but I told ‘Mione you were too married to your job to go a few days without obsessively keeping up or trying to break in again — with my name, mind you — to let loose with alcohol and your mistress.”

The furrow of Harry’s brows is ridden with confusion. “What’re you on about, Ron?”

“Malfoy. Lucius Malfoy. He’s broken out of Azkaban. Happened about…” Ron looks around in search of a clock. “Twenty-nine hours ago, on the dot.” His lips purse until they’re no longer visible, and he eases the newspapers from his clutches onto Harry’s desk. “Just him, too. No one else. No evidence of forced entrance or exit in his cell, either. He was just… fucking gone.”

Harry isn’t as concerned as he is surprised. He picks up the newspaper from the top of the stack, that morning’s _Prophet_ , narrows his eyes at the picture of the despondent face of Lucius Malfoy post-sentencing about five years ago. Harry had been at the hearing. He’d played a small part in finally getting him incarcerated — it’d been Lucius Malfoy’s own, pure stupidity that did the rest. Harry wouldn’t consider him dangerous, has a feeling Lucius is as spineless as he thinks him to be without a great, Dark leader, and the worst he could be doing is terrorizing children or house-elves out there somewhere without orders from a superior to do anything worse. No, he’s not dangerous. What’s much more dangerous is the inevitable outcry from the public, aghast that the Ministry could allow a convicted, possibly threatening, Death Eater, one of Voldemort’s most loyal followers, to reenter their world with what the details show to be ease. Harry had known enough hysteria in his life to be able to perfectly picture the paranoid gossip: _“I’ll bet he just walked out right past the guards, that’s how careless they are at Azkaban!”_

“The fuck,” Harry breathes unintelligibly after scanning the details of the article, which seems to have even less knowledge than Ron does, and Ron bloody works here.

“Right? And no sightings of him since.” Ron’s blue eyes are bulging now. Clearly he’s been waiting to talk to Harry about this, since everyone else is already hard at work and Ron is still sitting there, on Harry’s desk, mindboggled. “His wife’s gone, too.”

“Narcissa Malfoy’s gone?” Harry frowns, looks back down at Lucius’ skull-like face in the photo, his drab, lifeless, long hair. “Who’s head on the case?”

“Robards. Him and a few others are at Malfoy Manor right now.” Ron’s eyes dart to Harry, and he sits up as he shakes his head, as if reading his mind. “You’re not gonna get on, Harry. You were gone when it all started. Plus, you’ve…” Ron’s neck retracts slightly into his shoulders, like a turtle’s.

“I’ve what, Ron?”

“You’ve got a history of… personal involvement.”

“ _Personal involvement?_ ” Harry laughs suddenly. “If you mean that I testified against Lucius at his sentencing, then yes, I’m bloody well personally involved. I know his past, Ron, I’m familiar with his case. If anything, that should make me an asset.” Along with the fact that he hates Lucius Malfoy’s guts, which Harry thinks should be encouragement enough to put him back behind bars where he belongs.

Ron wrinkles his nose. “I meant with Malfoy. Malfoy Junior, I mean. Draco.” His shoulders slump and his head retreats from his turtle’s shell. “You did, like… You basically acquitted him and his mum. They didn’t get the life sentences everyone wanted them to.” Ron’s voice has only the slightest edge of bitterness to it. Harry thinks of Fred, of Bill, so he doesn’t glare at Ron like he does at most who dredge up the topic of the war in conversation, just because he is who he is. Then again, Narcissa Malfoy had saved his life, and Draco Malfoy had been a spoiled, cowardly toff in a Death Eater suit with whom he’d had a schoolyard rivalry. He’s silent, drumming his fingertips against the armrests of his chair restlessly. He decides he won’t push it, not right then. It’s possible he’s more irritable than usual, too, considering his blood is only just barely clean of alcohol after four days’ worth. And… He doesn’t want to fight with Ron, not the way he had around the time of the trials.

“Yeah, fine. Just want to get in on some action, y’know?” He sighs, rubbing at the dark stubble on his unshaven jaw. Ron gives him a faintly sympathetic smile, which he takes in stride. “Malfoy’s not gone with his parents, though, has he? I’m hoping everyone’s concluded that Narcissa and Lucius are undoubtedly together, given the timing, but what about Draco?” He’d pushed for the Malfoys’ acquittal in the hope that they’d turn their lives around, perhaps move somewhere far, far away where wizards in the streets wouldn’t threaten to _AK_ them at the sight of their familiar faces spattered across the media. They still resided in Wiltshire, though, Harry concludes, or at least Narcissa had until the wee hours of yesterday morning.

Ron shakes his head, starts to gather up the newspapers. “He’s there. Think they’ll bring him in for questioning sometime today or tomorrow.” An absent, airy smile comes to his face as he looks aimlessly past Harry’s shoulder. “Hope they’ll have someone good on him. I’d pay good money to watch it happen, watch Malfoy flounder. Think I’ll get in trouble if I sneak an Extendable Ear under the door of the Interrogation Room? I feel like most would understand. Think even The Minister would pay me to borrow one, eavesdrop right beside me.”

“Right after he fires you for attempting to breach case confidentiality.” Harry shoves at Ron’s knees so he’s forced to slide off Harry’s desk and onto his feet with an indignant squawk, as if he wasn’t quite ready to be uprooted. He can’t deny the intrigue himself, though. If Malfoy was really stupid enough to pull a stunt like this, even aid in it, he wants to know why. Harry wants to know everything — where Lucius has gone to when he’s got at least a good thirty more years to rot in Azkaban, why Narcissa went with him, why she still stands by a man who is the human form of the lowest scum of the Earth, how Draco is involved.

That’s when he hears sixth-year-Hermione’s voice in the back of his mind, chiding him for suspecting Draco Malfoy of being up to something. 

Ron flips him off about an inch from his face, but gives him a firm squeeze to the shoulder as he strides away as the sound of a demanding “ _Weasley!”_ echoes through the space. It comes from Ron’s Auror partner, Pansy Parkinson. To all of the older Aurors that hadn’t known Pansy as the Slytherin to nearly sell Harry out to the Dark Lord, she’s still the deceptively sweet-faced Metamorphmagus with the cropped, jet-black hair who’d passed all subjects in Auror training with top marks. Harry is guilty as charged for being part of the reason for the excessive background checks conducted on her prior to her admittance to the programme, but he’d once felt it was necessary, when he’d been eighteen and trusted no one. He’d had to be able to rely on his future colleagues. He and Ron had originally trained as partners, but after an incident on the job that involved nothing but _“pure ignorance, rambunctiousness, one another’s destructive company_ ” and a nearly-amputated leg for Ron, Robards had decided to split them up for the time being. Pansy is fierce and unforgiving enough to keep Ron in line, much to Harry’s misfortune. He misses working with his best friend, he’ll admit, but he counts himself lucky that it wasn’t he that Robards placed with Pansy. Ron and Pansy, Pansy and Ron — they’re like an inside joke among the rest of the Auror Department, because as different as they are, they’re two sides of the same coin when it comes to efficiency out in the field. And by now, two years later, Ron has learned to not fear it as much when he’s called into work with the knowledge that he’ll have to spend time with Pansy. What he’s most afraid of now is just the violent, abashed shade of red that he turns on the (frequent) occasions that Pansy is particularly cross with him.

Harry’s eyes dart around the room. Everyone is, indeed, poring over the case of the missing Lucius Malfoy, regardless of whether its inner workings fall to their jurisdiction or not. His face is pinned up all over the walls, as if someone might forget what he looked like, littered sporadically with recent shots of Narcissa, some of Draco. There’s an odd one of him smiling, and Harry wonders how the hell they’d managed to unearth that. It’s been a while since he’s seen Draco, but it hasn’t quite been five years; at his hearing, of course, some rare sightings of him in Diagon Alley, and once at a party he thinks was hosted by Pansy that Ginny had insisted they attend — reparations, and all. She's also his colleague, which makes her difficult to avoid.

He’s startled out of his Malfoy-related musing as a heavy stack of papers levitating into sight falls with a thud into the empty “To-Do” basket on his desk. He recognizes the curly handwriting on the note on top instantly as the Department secretary Susan’s, though he could’ve guessed that without even reading. They were never quite the same social circles at Hogwarts, but they’ve developed a reasonably friendly relationship based on Susan’s derision of Harry for his shirked responsibilities. At least Harry thinks they have — he’d been recently invited to the heavily-pregnant secretary’s baby shower. ‘You can’t run away from your paperwork forever, Harry. This is all unfinished from your past 5 cases. And, brilliant news for me: You won’t be allowed back into the field before you finish it. Had a chat with the boss man while you were gone x,’ says the pink Post-It note, Susan’s latest Muggle discovery and obsession. Harry’s eyes shift focus over the Post-It on the monstrous stack of paperwork, and he wishes suddenly that he was back in Mykonos, miles from the paperwork he’s weaseled out of doing for months. He loves his job, the action and excitement and terror of it, he’s good at what he does, and as much as he resents the Savior title, he thinks it helps a little to entice Robards to put Harry out in the field despite his growing pile of neglected desk work. He shuts his eyes for a moment, exhales deeply, and then scoots toward the desk with determination to pick up a quill. He needs to bring himself back down to Earth, back to London. Susan tells him quite often that had he been anyone else, Harry would’ve been sacked ages ago. He doesn’t _not_ believe it. 

***

It’s nearing six in the evening when Harry reaches the halfway point of his paperwork stack. Most of the Headquarters has emptied out — Ron had left about an hour ago, though Pansy had stormed out on him already at mid-afternoon, furious at her partner for one reason or another that he’d refused to explain to Harry when he’d asked. He’d shrugged Harry off and explained that he’d best be leaving, as he’d promised Hermione and her parents a home-cooked dinner he hadn’t even begun to plan yet. A delicately-folded paper airplane memo, sent up to him from Danica, had jabbed Harry in the forehead just moments ago, and he’s in the very midst of casting a Patronus to respond to her when Robards strides in, flanked by two Aurors-in-training, all seeming to sport similar, grim expressions. A closer look tells Harry it’s just Robards, and his followers look more like they might just wet their pants. Like a professor sighting their favorite pupil and prodigy, though, Robards smiles in relief when he catches a glimpse of Harry from between his towers of paperwork, and he strides over to him, meanwhile directing his lackeys into his office with a wave of his hand.

“Potter,” he sighs wearily, leaning against the wobbly wall of Harry’s cubicle. “I need you.”

Harry, seizing the opportunity to interact with someone other than his quill, oft-spilled ink, and copious rolls of parchment, pastes on a smirk as his tone goes breathy. “Oh, blimey. _Gawain_. I mean, I would’ve never considered it, but now that it’s you doing the asking —“

Robards’ smile falls from his face faster than one extinguishes a candle, and he narrows his eyes at Harry. “To think I actually regretted sending you off to cavort with intoxicated Muggles in Greece.” The look on Harry’s face clearly amuses him, because then he says, “yes, yes. I know Lucius Malfoy is currently front page news, but you needn’t flip too far into the paper to find _The Boy Who Lived It Up_.” He rolls his eyes, then turns on his heel, motioning for Harry to follow. “The next time you address me as anything other than ‘Head Auror Robards,’ I won’t be lying when I tell Susan to keep you off the field.”

Harry leaps out of his chair, clears his throat before muttering a, “ _sorry, sir_ ,” under his breath. Then he momentarily panics, says, “ _sorry, Head Auror Robards_ ,” so quickly he stumbles over his words, but he thinks he might hear Robards laugh at him. They pace into Robards’ office, and one of his trainee-minions charms the door shut so it slams with a violent noise that echoes through the near-empty headquarters. He cowers in embarrassment when Harry looks over at him, and then at Robards, but the latter seems too concentrated to notice. Or then he’s just accustomed to the idiocy of new hires.

“We’ve just been at Malfoy Manor,” Robards says, and in an instant he has all of Harry’s attention. He’s standing behind his desk, palms against the surface, fingertips drumming against the dark wood as he fixes Harry with his gaze. “I’ve got Corner and Goldstein on-site until tomorrow, when we’ll bring in Draco Malfoy for questioning.” Harry doesn’t know what this has to do with him, but he has a feeling he’s about to find out. He relishes being the reckless-but-still-beloved teacher’s pet. He doesn’t dare speak, though, until Robards is finished. “Due to your absence during the breakout, I’d also assigned Weasley and Parkinson to the case. However, Weasley is claiming he has a personal vendetta for a myriad of reasons — some understandable, some nonsensical — that… could possibly _endanger_ one of our few suspects at hand.” Harry can tell Robards isn’t convinced by whatever Ron had spewed at him to get himself off the Malfoy case. He feels himself smile sympathetically. “Parkinson was furious, to say the least, for reasons that you can imagine. She deserves a high-profile case, and one of these days, she’ll get one. But, for now, Potter… Have you seen Creasey?”

Harry visibly grimaces at the name. Right. Come to think of it, he’s been in a blissfully neutral mood all day, as he has managed to miraculously not cross paths with his own partner, Clem Creasey. Clem Creasey, who has proved himself a capable and reliable partner and a good Auror; a partner who doesn’t hold Harry back on missions and deals with Harry’s occasional emotional tirades with grace; a partner who maintains his magical, physical, and mental fitness for the job impressively… Creasey, who Harry should like.

It’s just that Creasey has stupid hair that refuses to lose its manicured, curly texture even when they both emerge from a mission blood-spattered. And he’s lazy, just never directly in Robards’ view. And he’s a full head taller than Harry — more, Ron claims, which is a bullshit lie — and he’s got a weird, mousey face and a lanky, boyish body that make him look ten years his junior. He is, however, still attractive and charming enough that he has everyone in the Department except Harry and Pansy wrapped around his little finger (he has a suspicion that she’s secretly quite taken with Ron, which he has not shared with Hermione). And that’s why Harry gets the completely reasonable urge to hit him with a good, ol’ _Tarantallegra_ whenever he’s around, just so he’d look to everyone like the idiot he fucking well is.

A bit harsh, maybe.

“Probably still enjoying his time off.”

“I didn’t grant him any bloody time off. Just because his partner exceeded his on-call quota months ago doesn’t —“ Robards breaks off, sighs, and rolls out his neck slowly. He’s silent for a moment, and Harry hopes he’s thinking about hexing Creasey. Then he levels Harry with a serious gaze once again. “That’s beside the point. Tomorrow, we’re going to bring in several suspects, among them some Azkaban guards and employees, Draco Malfoy, as well as his alibi witness, Blaise Zabini, who Malfoy claims he was with the evening and morning of Lucius Malfoy’s escape. You’re to interrogate Zabini first thing tomorrow.” He watches Harry expectantly, awaiting protest. It doesn’t come, though, because Harry now has an in on the Malfoy case, and this past week of drinking and Mykonos-ing away from work doesn’t seem like such a waste, fun as it was. “I know you’re not Creasey’s biggest fan, Harry, but make it work with him. He’s a good kid. Please don’t fuck this up.”

 _Kid._ Right. Creasey is two years older than Harry, and he looks five years younger.

“Of course, sir. I’ll do everything to make Zabini think I can stand him.”

Robards rolls his eyes, but seems satisfied regardless. “I don’t care what he thinks of you as long as you get me answers.” When he falls silent, Harry stands there awkwardly, awaiting instruction. Robards raises his eyebrows. “You’re free to go, Potter.”

He nods at Robards, and as he turns to leave, does the same to the trainees hovering nervously at the corners of the room like inexperienced bodyguards — as if the Head Auror needs them. He feels them exchange a giddy look behind his back as he passes through the door. He wonders when exactly his celebrity will begin to fade. It’s a relief, though, when Harry returns to his dimly-lit cubicle, the cogs in his mind beginning to turn and process his new assignment. Blaise Zabini, then. Harry doesn’t think he’s paid particular mind to Blaise since he’d sat across from him at Slug Club meetings, and even then he hadn’t struck him as worth noticing. Stoic, haughty, snide — just marks of a typical Slytherin to Harry. He hadn’t even known he was pals with Malfoy. Harry, seated on the edge of his chair with his chin in his hand, takes a break from staring at the wall of his cubicle and musing over questions with which to batter Zabini to send a Patronus to Creasey to alert him of his assignment. Their assignment. It comes easily enough when he thinks of dancing simultaneously beachside and poolside in Greece, surrounded by people who had no desire to shake his hand, thank him, or even know him. 


	3. Chapter 3

“Pot- _uhr_!” The sound of Clem Creasey’s enthusiastic voice rings through the Department the following morning as he strides through the cubicles toward Harry, arms spread, an unfortunately genuine grin on his face. His bony knees jut through the Auror uniform robes with each step he takes, and his smile is too large for both his head and Harry’s liking. Though his family is English, Creasey spent half his life in the States, and returned to the UK after training as an Auror. It’s all much to Harry’s chagrin — as if the fact that Creasey interacting with him isn’t enough, his harsh, American pronunciation of Harry’s name is just the icing on the cake.

“Creasey,” Harry greets cordially, peering down at his notes for Zabini’s interrogation. But then Clem’s arms around him for a brief moment, clapping him heartily on the back. Then he makes himself comfortable against the square foot of space on Harry’s desk not completely drowned by paperwork, crossing his ankle against his knee.

“Look at you, man. I was jealous, I’ll admit, but you deserved it. Fuckin’ look at you, man. You look both recharged and fuckin’ wrecked all the same! Props to you.” He gives Harry a friendly smack to the shoulder with the back of his hand. “And that chick from Magical Education?” He chuckles and emits a low, almost predatory whistle that makes Harry cringe internally. “Nice one.”

“Yeah. Great, okay. Anyway, Creasey — have you had a chance to prepare for this? Zabini, he’s a probable suspect as well as Malfoy’s alibi. If they’re as close as they claim to be —“

“Potter. Chill. We’re just questioning him. We’re not the Wizengamot. We don’t need crack him like an egg. All we gotta do is twist his arm a bit, right up ‘til he gets uncomfortable and relents and says ‘ow.’ Y’know?”

Frankly, Harry doesn’t care for Creasey’s weak and unfitting attempts at figures of speech, but he nods faintly just to appease him for the time being.

“I think I’ll handle the first few questions,” he states, and Creasey doesn’t protest, just asks with a wriggle of his brows if he’s ‘seen’ Danica Dawlish since his return from Greece. 

***

Blaise Zabini sits with utmost ease behind the stark, white table in the slightly claustrophobic room when Harry strolls in with Clem not far behind. Clem _swaggers_ in, though. That’s the only way Harry can think to describe it. Blaise doesn’t move an inch but for his eyes flickering to Harry and Clem in turn and his brows lifting against his dark forehead.

“Am I really so important they had to send Harry Potter in to interrogate me? I’m flattered.” Blaise’s lips quirk up at the corners as Clem takes a seat across from him. Harry doesn’t take the remaining chair, oddly unsettled by Blaise’s calmness, and instead leans into the palms of his hands which he’s placed flat onto the table. His jaw grits for a moment as he tries to decide how to proceed. He starts by ignoring Blaise’s comment completely.

“Zabini. You claim you were with Draco Malfoy the night of the twenty-first of March, the eve of Lucius Malfoy’s disappearance.”

Blaise sighs, shifting his arms where they’re folded over his chest. “Yes,” he says slowly, drawing it out so the ‘s’ sound is a bit of a hiss.

“And where were you and Malfoy that evening?”

“My flat.”

“Is there anyone else who can vouch —“

“My fiancée can, Potter. She was there, too. Look — I haven’t got the time for this. I’m not bloody lying. You’ve got your reasons for distrust, but I can’t be arsed to argue. I’ve got a wedding to plan, shit to do. Can’t I just... I don’t know. Sign a release, give you my memories?” he asks impatiently, glancing incriminatingly from Harry’s palms on the tabletop up to his face.

Harry blinks and lets out a choked noise. He’d planned for it to be his third consecutive authoritative question. He’d been on a fucking roll. But instead, he eases slightly out of his power stance and off the balls of his feet. He hadn’t expected Zabini to cooperate, much less make an offer like that. The Voluntary Release of Memories for Evidence isn’t uncommon, but most people don’t jump at the thought of handing little pieces of themselves over to Law Enforcement to prod, poke at, and analyze, even if it makes for a less tedious process. He clears his throat, and because there’s no on else to do so with, he exchanges glances with Clem (who would have otherwise been his very last choice for a shared moment of bewilderment). “That is an option,” he says slowly, pulling out the chair beside Clem with a screech against the metal floor and finally taking a seat, eye level with Zabini. “It’s, er...”

Clem fills in before Harry can regain his thoughts. Bastard. He’d showed up that morning with no plans for their interrogation, riding on Harry’s coattails until he finds something he can look useful while doing. “Depending on the memories you extract, we may still need a testimony from you. Even if you’re able to give us reasonable evidence to show Draco Malfoy was with you on the eve of the breakout, it’s not necessarily enough to clear your name.” He conjures a scroll with a careful flick of his wand that unrolls itself where it appears and hovers before Zabini, and with that a quill. “There’s a lot of shit there to read —“ How professionally put, Harry thinks, “— but it basically says we’ll be able to tell if your memories have been altered, you’ll reap the consequences, et cetera.” Clem’s right, so Harry can’t correct him on anything, but his jaw grits a bit at how pompous he sounds. “Evidence for the night of the twenty-first and for your and Malfoy’s innocence can only be strengthened by any accessory memories you decide to extract.”

Zabini seems deep in thought for all of four seconds before he delicately picks up the quill and scrawls his signature beside the ‘X’. The scroll curls into itself and disappears with the quill with the sound of the soft rustle of parchment. Clem smiles at Harry like he’s accomplished something worthy of such a smile, and Harry returns it halfheartedly.

But then Zabini says, “Potter,” into the silence of the cramped space.

“What?”

“Potter. I choose you to be my Memory Trustee. He’s qualified, isn’t he?” Zabini chances a blank look at Creasey. Creasey frowns thoughtfully but nods, which Harry doesn’t notice.

“ _What?_ ” Harry says again. He’s shocked Zabini had managed to read a single word on the VROMFE document. It is the right of a witch or wizard who voluntarily releases memories to the Aurors to entrust their viewing to a single, privileged official of their choice to maximize their privacy. The Memory Trustee is sworn to secrecy on all evidential matters not objectively related to the case. What’s slightly more shocking is that Zabini chose him. He clears his throat again, and now he’s the unprofessional one, gawking at a clearly unamused and impatient Zabini he’d failed to interrogate but had managed to sway into giving up his memories. “I mean — yes. I’m qualified. Certainly.” His voice comes out painfully strained. Harry forces on a smile, and the feeling of the expression on his own face irks him just as much as he can tell it irks Zabini. As soon as he makes the verbal confirmation, the quill and parchment reappear before him, unrolls to the line waiting for Harry’s written acceptance of responsibility. He can feel the magic of the contract tingle through his fingertips and into his hand and wrist as he picks up the quill to sign his name.

“Alright, then,” Zabini mutters with a roll of his eyes, rising slowly out of his chair. “Shall we proceed, then, Potter? I’m assuming you’ll take them now, so I can get out of this damned place and not come back.”

Walking into the interrogation, the last thing Harry would’ve expected was that when he exited later, he’d be preceded by their overly compliant suspect. Zabini shouldn’t even know where the Hall of Memory is, yet he’s striding two steps in front of Harry, and in the correct direction, too. Harry doesn’t think it’s his place to ask if Zabini has done this before, but he also wants to say _something_ , the empty hallways filled with nothing but the sound of their brisk footsteps; the soft pads of Zabini’s dragon leather loafers, and the shuffle of Harry’s worn-in sneakers that he’s certain manage to violate the very loosely-enforced Auror dress code. He clears his throat, and Zabini looks cursorily down at him from the corner of his eye. Zabini has three inches on him, minimum.

“You’ve done this before?” 

Zabini nods. “Surround yourself with whom others perceive to be the wrong people, Potter, and you’ll be paying for it in installments for years to come.”

Harry grimaces. He’s certain Zabini’s friendship with Pansy has something to do with his knowledge of the second floor, which is slightly disconcerting, but Harry doesn’t pry. “Right.” He hadn’t intended to get directly down to the root of the awkwardness between them, but Zabini had been the one to hit home. Zabini simply smirks in response to Harry’s reaction, though, and steps aside in a sardonically courteous way to let Harry in front as they reach the arched, mahogany doors to the Hall of Memory. Harry proffers his wand to the doors, which seem to regard him and then silently open as if in greeting, and traipses inside with Zabini on his heels. The Hall of Memory is quite unlike the Hall of Prophecy — it’s bright, every surface of white marble, and the enormously high ceiling opens up to distant, massive skylights bewitched to reflect a clear, blue sky despite their being several storeys underground. Private booths with a Pensieve each line the room, and the space is only made brighter by the subtle glow emitted by the vials and vials of memories that are stored in delicate, metal racks that extend to the ceiling in the very center of the room, each vial seemingly indistinguishable from the thousands surrounding it. A self-balancing ladder, similar to the ones Harry imagines a posh library would have leaned up against bookshelves, stands by the racks, to be used in seeking a memory from the racks. When Harry had once asked — stupidly — what they do when the racks run out of room, Susan had told him that they extend the Hall, the racks, and the ladder all upward. Harry imagines there’ll be clouds hovering around the very apex of the racks someday.

Zabini coughs, and Harry realizes he’s been lost in his own thoughts, and though he’s undoubtedly seen the space at least a few times more than Blaise, he’s still the more impressed of the two.

“Are you this spacey all the time, or is this residual from your escapades with the Muggles of the Mediterranean?”

Harry’s head whips toward Zabini mid-walk to the marble pedestal with a glass bowl of empty vials, and in the process knocks his shoulder against a corner of the memory rack, sending the cascading sound of tinkling glass echoing through the room. “Why does everyone care so much about how I spent my week off?” he huffs. “I’m genuinely curious.”

“ _Merlin_ , Potter. Nobody cares. You’re just thrust in our faces so often that you’re hard to avoid.” Zabini sighs, follows him over, and accepts the vial that Harry hands to him.

“Someone must, if they keep publishing it.” He knows it’s true. He doesn’t think the audience for gossip about The Chosen One will die anytime soon. Then he clears his throat, eyes on Zabini’s face as he folds his arms over his chest. “The night of the twenty-first, then.” When Zabini’s eyes snap to Harry’s just as he’s bringing his wand to his temple, Harry swallows, nodding to the vial. “Please,” he adds for good measure. Zabini extracts the silvery substance with the tip of his wand, deposits it into the vial, hands it over to Harry. Letting go of the memory doesn’t bring any sort of notable relief to Zabini, who is already utterly at ease, Harry notes. He stoppers the vial as Zabini reaches for another, eyes flickering in the direction of the ceiling briefly, like he’s in thought.

“Anything concerning the Malfoys will help?” he asks dubiously. Then, without waiting for Harry to answer, Zabini shrugs and draws out something longer from his temple. It takes more effort this time around, and he presses that vial into Harry’s hands as well. He does that several more times, until Harry’s struggling to hold all the vials in his bare hands, though they’re all stoppered and secure. After the final one, Blaise is practically smiling. “Can I go now?” he asks, and eyes Harry, clearly amused by his struggle.

“Uh… You’ve signed the release, you’ve given the memories. So. Yeah. You can go.” Zabini’s heel turns easily on the smooth marble as he heads toward the doors without further adieu. Harry grunts quietly as he takes careful steps toward the rack of memories. “Uh, thanks!” he calls out belatedly, though he’s not sure if he’s been done a favor or not.

Zabini carelessly gives Harry a two-fingered salute without looking back, and soon the doors shut behind him. Their interaction hadn’t been very professional, by any means, but Harry isn’t sure it was friendly, either. If he’d just let Zabini go out of his own sheer awkwardness and his memories ended up reaping Harry no benefit, Robards will hex every hair off Harry’s chest, one by one. He shudders at the thought, and once he’s finished frowning at the door, Harry offers the vials to the rack one at a time, whereupon they float from his fingers up the height of it, disappearing amongst the rest. He’d kept two of them in the pocket of his coat — March the twenty-first, and whichever particularly strong memory Blaise had extracted just after that. It’s Harry’s obligation to examine them in detail, of course, but he can’t help that he’s curious, too. He makes his way toward an unoccupied Pensieve booth, feeling strangely grateful Blaise hadn’t allocated Clem bloody Creasey to be his Memory Trustee. As he steps inside, hovers in front of the Pensieve, swirling with white smoke like a saturated paintbrush just dipped into a glass of water, he hears the marble close up behind him, protecting him from the remainder of the Hall. Harry exhales deeply, then sticks his hand into his pocket to retrieve one of the two vials. They’re identical, and he’s going to watch them both, so he doesn’t bother to Summon whichever came first. He unplugs the vial and lets Blaise’s memory trickle into the Pensieve. Leaning over, submerging his face in the mist, Harry falls.

*** 

Draco Malfoy wears an emerald, silken dressing gown and black pyjamas of the same material underneath. He strides furiously past Harry, brows pinched together in an almost familiar way, and out the open doors at the end of the long hall. He watches Malfoy go. It’s hot — he’s been there for all of a few seconds and Harry’s shirt is sticking to his back, sweat beading right at his hairline. If he could make an educated guess, he’d say he’s at Malfoy Manor, if the dark walls and Turkish rugs and gilded frames of the paintings have anything to say about it. Then again, he hasn’t been back since the spring before the end of the War, and he wasn’t exactly given a tour of the home when he’d been a guest. Behind him, a sigh resounds that smacks Harry with déjà vu — Hermione would correct him and say déjà entendu — from five minutes ago has Harry whirling to watch Blaise Zabini stalk after Malfoy, out of the hall and into the yard. He’s thinner than he’d been in Harry’s presence just now. Despite all the awfully intriguing trinkets that decorate the hallway inside the Manor, Harry has no choice but to follow in their footsteps, shrugging out of his jacket and folding it over the crook of his arm. It’s dark outside, but it doesn’t help to relieve the tangible humidity in the air.

“For the last time, _fuck_ off,” Malfoy hisses, and. Wow. For all he’d reveled in ridiculing Harry in school, Harry didn’t think he’d ever heard Malfoy swear.

“Dray. If I fucked off, you’d have no one left.” Zabini’s hands are on his hips, and he’s dressed in a way that unsettles Harry — tight, dark jeans, a white t-shirt. For some reason, seeing Malfoy in frivolously luxurious sleepwear isn’t much of a surprise. But before today, Harry hadn’t seen Zabini in anything but Hogwarts robes. He’d also never realized the strong set of his shoulders under the taut material of his white shirt. Or his blatant attractiveness. Merlin’s beard, perhaps he’s more spacey than he thought. “Except your mum.”

Malfoy glowers at this, pale, bony hands clenching into fists at his sides. “Charming,” he mutters. He looks like he hasn’t seen the sun in months, and his hair is long, if not slightly unkempt. With that scowl on his face, though, he doesn’t look any less Malfoy. Malfoy turns from Zabini, continues barefoot through the grass. There’s no peacocks, Harry notes, but the grass is green, and lush flowerbeds bloom every few feet. Small apple trees are interspersed between the beds.

“Oh, come on, Draco. You can’t complain I never come see you, then tell me to sod off when I tell the honest truth,” Zabini says, steps slow as he makes his way after Malfoy, probably not as fast and intent as Malfoy would like, as up ahead, he’s slowing down, too. “Don’t think you’ve ever failed to not have your wand in a knot when I get here. I get it, you’re stuck here, you can’t leave, but I don’t want to try and make you feel better about it if you’re just going to be an arse. What do I get out of that?”

“Hmm. What do you get out of that? Good head, for one.” Harry blinks, thinking he’s misheard. “That’s all you come for nowadays, isn’t it? It’s summer, school’s not in session, you’ve got fuck all to do. You think to yourself, ‘oh, maybe if I listen to Draco whine for ten minutes, he’ll fancy sucking me off!’ And then you Floo on over.” Harry’s stare shifts from Malfoy to Zabini, who looks perfectly ready to retort, but Malfoy barrels on. “You know what, Blaise? I apologize. I sincerely apologize for being unhappy about my current situation, and I’m deeply sorry that I had to trouble you to uphold your end of that ‘being friends’ contract that I forced you to accept against your will. There’s this part — you’d know, if you read the fine print — where it says that everything’s not always fucking swell for one of us, but that’s fine, because we can sympathize, and we can help, or we can at least understand that — that everything’s not always fucking swell.”

Zabini licks his lips, head cocked to the side, concern obvious in his eyes. When he takes a step toward Malfoy, Malfoy takes one backwards, and ends up arse-over-tit on the grass when his heel catches on the gnarly root of an old tree. Zabini stifles a fond laugh. Malfoy looks mortified, and he stains his silky dressing gown when he wipes his muddy hands off on it. He rises to his feet, avoiding Zabini’s eyes, and slumps back against the tree, arms folded over his chest. “Fuck off,” he whispers, but Harry can hear it, only because he’s standing much too close. His eyes haven’t left Malfoy, not for a while, and the moon makes his skin glow with a ghostly pallor, casts his eyes in black shadow in their sockets. Zabini’s there in his space suddenly, and Harry takes a step back. He doesn’t think he’s felt this much like an intruder in someone else’s memory since he watched his father dangle Snape in the air by his ankle.

“Dray.” Zabini’s voice is deep and even, but Malfoy ignores it with his jaw clenched and his nostrils flared, eyes glued to the ground. “Dray, listen to me.” Zabini’s palms come up and press against the tree on both sides of Malfoy’s head, and there’s a breath of a second where nothing happens, but then Malfoy is shoving Zabini away bodily. Zabini doesn’t relent, though, and he retaliates by grabbing Malfoy’s wrists, and both of their wands fall in the debacle. Malfoy struggles against Zabini’s hold, attempts to knee him in the nuts, which Zabini gracefully evades, and the hot summer air is filled with nothing but their frustrated, tense breathing until Malfoy lands a poorly-aimed punch to Zabini’s face. That’s when he finally lets go, touches his fingertips to the blood on his lower lip, and examines them in silence while Malfoy watches. What Harry least expects to follow transpires when Malfoy’s face is overcome with pity and he sags into Zabini’s body, face pressed to his chest, hands grasping for a hold on his shoulders. Zabini responds with an instant arm around Malfoy’s waist as he wipes the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, and by the look on his face, seems to find some sort of sick pleasure in looking at the smear of it across his skin after. 

Harry is uncomfortable, to say the least. He doesn’t think it’s possible that Zabini gave him this memory accidentally. Perhaps there’s something he should be noticing, that he should be looking for, and though he’ll admit he hasn’t exactly been keeping an eye out for glaring evidence of clues for the Lucius Malfoy case, nothing strikes him as suspicious. It’s only… Strange. Harry considers withdrawing, but he’s rooted to his spot when he hears Malfoy speak.

“Sorry.” It’s small, and stubborn, and spoken muffled against Zabini’s chest without particular conviction, but it’s enough to make Zabini’s lips quirk tenderly.

“I’ll take that as a blanket-apology. I’m sure somewhere in there’s a ’sorry I’m a prat,’ a ‘sorry I implied you think only with your dick,’ and a ’sorry I very rudely told you to bugger off twice within fifteen minutes of your arrival,’ yeah?”

“You do think with your dick.” Malfoy lifts his head, assesses Zabini’s face with narrowed eyes. He lifts his hand to knock his fist gently against his buzzed skull. “I do always wonder what you keep in there, when I know for a fact that your brain is in your cock.” He has the same, self-satisfied smirk on his face that he always did when he successfully got a rise out of Harry years ago. Zabini isn’t fuming, though. He’s kissing Malfoy on the forehead, then tilting his chin up to kiss him on the mouth, bloodied lip and all. Harry wipes his sweaty palms against his trousers, and looks quickly away to the closest bed of carnations. He’s well aware that memory-Malfoy and Zabini won’t mind he’s watching, that they don’t even know, but he’s no pervert. He hadn’t even known Malfoy liked men. When he looks back, Malfoy has his head tipped back against the trunk of the tree, and Harry’s missed whatever he’s just said.

“House arrest may be rubbish, but these wards they’ve got on the grounds?” Malfoy gently pushes Zabini by the chest as he takes a step away from the tree, an odd, unexpected skip in his step as he walks further into the yard. It’s massive, as in the dark, Harry can’t quite see where the property ends. “They’re pretty brilliant. Only a loon would wander all the way out here, but you know the Ministry. They’ve made sure of it that no one can see or hear me brewing Draught of Living Death out here in the open, in my yard, or parading my Mark around while practicing Dark Magic, _as I do_.” He snickers as he holds his arms out to both sides, spinning around, still walking in the opposite direction of Zabini and Harry. “Ingenious.” Malfoy shrugs out of his dressing gown and leaves it in the grass. Zabini goes after him, walks straight through Harry in the process. Malfoy’s running now, further from the Manor, his manic laughter getting lost in the dark void around them. Zabini picks up Malfoy’s dressing gown from the ground, picks up a jog to keep up with him.

“You’re batshit crazy,” he calls out, sing-songy, after Malfoy.

“Did you know there’s a brook back here, Blaise? I’ll be honest, I didn’t until about six years ago.” Malfoy’s voice is fainter, and Harry can’t see him, but what he can see is Blaise grasp Malfoy’s silken pyjama top from the grass. The mood has shifted since Harry’s arrival, done a complete one-eighty, in fact. He glances back at the Manor. This is when he expects Narcissa Malfoy to emerge, for something drastic to happen. Instead, he and Zabini reach the bank of the burbling brook that runs along the edge of the Malfoy property, concealed by trees and hidden in a small valley. Malfoy stands in the water, which is only ankle-deep, shirtless with his pyjama bottoms cuffed. When Zabini comes into his line of sight, he smiles in a way makes Harry’s skin itch. It’s pleasant — not the itching, but his smile. It looks genuine, but still out of place on Malfoy’s face. When Harry looks over, Zabini seems more entranced by the rest of Malfoy. He kicks off his shoes, peels off his socks, and then slides down to the muddy bank to take the few steps remaining to get to Malfoy.

Harry turns his back on the two of them, rubbing his thumb and forefinger against his eyelids under his glasses. He decides he’s seen enough.


	4. Chapter 4

It’s the evening of March twenty-first, or so claims the calendar dangling from the wall, depicting an unmoving picture of Her Royal Majesty, the Queen, donning a fully magenta getup. ‘I’ve a feeling we’re not at Malfoy Manor anymore,’ Harry thinks idly, sliding his hands into his pockets. When someone walks straight through him again — he’s really got to stop getting caught up in irrelevant details — he turns his attention to a fashionably decorated living room, where a blonde woman sets down a hummus platter on a coffee table that’s basically just a polished cross-section of a tree trunk, cluttered with glasses half-full of elf-made wine.

“Draco, have some pita,” she says as she takes a seat on the velvety sofa, sinking into the side of Blaise Zabini. Malfoy sits across from them in a loveseat, alone but for the Pit Bull with its massive head on his lap. He’s too focused on a white book he’s holding to give the hummus a second glance, and pats the top of the dog’s head with his palm. The age difference between this memory and the last is conspicuous. Malfoy’s back to being perfectly groomed, his white-blonde hair long enough in the  to fall across his forehead in the front, and his face isn’t as hollow, but his chin is a bit pointier and his jaw is a bit sharper. He’s in all black — just not pyjamas this time.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Bexley. _White bread?_ You’re going to be in a white dress in less than two months’ time with hundreds of people staring at you, and because I’m going to be up there, too, they might also chance a look at me.” Malfoy shuts the book and places it in his lap, looks across the space between them, and then reaches out to grab a piece of pita to stuff into his mouth.

The woman, whom Harry recognizes now as Paloma Bexley, from the year below them at Hogwarts, chuckles lightly at Malfoy’s words. It’s a sound Harry recalls having grown quite familiar with, he thinks with a shudder. He’d never understood how many had been victims of The Chosen One fad or how many had genuinely liked him, but he can still picture her face in the clique of seventh years who’d vied for his attention. There were others younger, sure, but they’d always been rather more brazen. They’d thought being of age would make Harry more likely to sleep with them. That wasn’t completely wrong, and he hadn’t _loathed_ the attention, but it wasn’t exactly correct, either. She tilts her chin up toward Zabini, brushes her nose against the corner of his jaw. “Not Bexley for long,” she says softly, but not privately. Harry hears it, and evidently Malfoy hears it perfectly well, too, because his eyes narrow for so short a moment it’s undetectable to Paloma. Harry mentally ticks her off as a crowd-follower, as five years out, here she is, apparently engaged to Blaise Zabini. But that’s beside the point. Malfoy’s clenched jaw relaxes and he offers the white book toward them just as Zabini leans over to kiss Paloma, and she whips around, fingertips pressing to Zabini’s full lips as she grasps the book. “ _Oh_ , Draco. I’m so excited I might cry. What if I cry?” Her light eyebrows draw together for a second as she looks from Malfoy to Zabini and then back to Malfoy, but her curiosity wins out and she opens the book.

Harry’s been slowly circling the room as the interaction went on, studying Malfoy, the Muggle records on the shelves, the motionless photographs, Paloma’s vintage yellow dress. Though he’d never considered it, it’s odd to find Blaise Zabini so at ease in a home filled with the clear remnants of Paloma’s Muggle upbringing. A dramatic gasp of joy startles Harry from his reverie, and his eyes wander back to the couple on the couch as he approaches them. Paloma has her hand on her ample chest, head cocked to the side, the book open on her lap as Zabini peers over her shoulder.

“It’s magnificent, Draco,” she says in awe. There are several pictures affixed to the scrapbook pages — a grand ballroom with high, chandelier-filled ceilings, and what Harry can only assume to be the grounds of the building. A wedding venue. As she turns the page, samples and snippets of this and that flutter slightly with the motion — white fabric, white feathers, pressed wildflowers. Paloma dabs at her eyes with her polished fingers, gives Malfoy a wobbly smile before fixing her focus back down again. Malfoy returns the sentiment briefly, but continues to expectantly watch Zabini. His fingertips hold his head up at his temple, his arm against the armrest of the chair, legs in their smart, black trousers crossed at the knee. He’s waiting for some sort of reaction, Harry can tell. Paloma whispers something to Zabini, something about _can he imagine her in a dress of all feathers_ , and how _she’s always wanted a wildflower bouquet, to think of it,_ but he nods vaguely, then meets Malfoy’s waiting gaze. “It’s absolutely perfect,” Paloma says into the silence, still entranced. Zabini gives Malfoy a nod, perhaps of thanks, and this spurs Malfoy to rise up, and the Pit Bull makes a disgruntled noise at the loss of human contact.

“I’m glad you like it. Whenever you’re free, we can go tour it. My buyer won’t be in the country until the winter, so I doubt they’ll have any reason to interrupt the wedding preparations.” Malfoy tugs at the untucked hem of his shirt, not looking directly at either of them. “I’ll be going, then.”

“Nonsense!” Paloma says immediately. “No, Draco, it’s so late. Stay in the guest bedroom. Spend the night. You can leave in the morning, if you’d like, but don’t trouble yourself to get home now.”

The look on Malfoy’s face says ‘it’d be more trouble to stay,’ but Paloma is a hard person to say no to. Harry would’ve struggled, as well. He hadn’t known, though, that Malfoy’s willpower would be so weak as for him to concede as quickly as he does. The rest of the memory isn’t very eventful. Harry stays long enough to watch Malfoy retreat into the guest room about half an hour before the events of the Azkaban breakout, and Zabini and Paloma stay up for a bit longer, chatting, though he finds himself zoning out, not listening. Around ten past three in the morning, Zabini kisses his fiancée’s head as she heads to their bedroom, and Harry joins him as he checks in on Malfoy — Malfoy, who’s curled up small under the crisp, white sheets of the bed, snoring quietly, his blazer and trousers laying neatly folded on a chair nearby. Zabini shuts the door practically in Harry’s face before he’s done looking. Right. He withdraws from the memory.

*** 

Harry tells Danica he needs some time to himself — whether it’s for that night, or that week, is ambiguous. He does that on purpose. He genuinely needs some time to himself, though he decides against it rather impulsively when Ron invites him over to catch up that evening. Filling out paperwork on the evidence he’d documented so far had done nothing for the sudden weight of Zabini’s memories in his own head. As Memory Trustee, though, he couldn’t speak a nonessential word about Zabini’s dreams outloud without suffering dire consequences. Not quite those of the Unbreakable Vow, but he would certainly lose his position as an Auror... at the very least.

“You do realize Pansy is never going to let you live this down,” Harry says. He’s in an armchair in Ron and Hermione’s flat just off Diagon Alley. It’s a cozy, little microcosm of the Burrow, but the pictures on the wall aren’t crooked and the shoes in the foyer are neatly stacked into the shoerack. Sometimes. The shoerack is self-organizing, too, but Ron has the incredible talent of managing to kick his shoes off way down the hall, where the shoerack’s simple magic cannot reach.

Ron sets a beer in Harry’s hands before he falls onto the couch with his own, exhaling a sigh and staring almost emptily ahead. “Don’t remind me,” he mutters. “I thought she was bad enough when she wasn’t vexed with me. Actually, I thought she always _was_ vexed with me. That was just her neutral state, though.”As his eyes flicker to Harry’s, he shakes his head minutely, eyes haunted. “You don’t wanna know, mate.”

“You’re just intimidated by all women with even an inkling of personality,” Hermione says from Ron’s other side, book open on her lap. “Frankly, I think it was a terrible choice on your part, Ronald. It’s been years since you’ve seen Draco. Probably not since the war, actually. He’s suffered his punishment, and is now a perfectly respectable member of society.” Ron gapes at her, scandalized, as she looks up from her book for the very first time. “Oh, please. I know better than anyone that he was a narrow-minded prat once upon a time. But we were also children, and the man who impressed all of Draco’s terrible ideals onto him was in prison until very recently. I’m sure he’s grown somewhat as a person outside Lucius’ circle of influence.” Ron can’t seem to believe what he’s hearing, because he doesn’t say a word, just looks to Harry for support with furrowed brows and open palms that would say _‘what the fuck’_ if hand gestures could speak.

Years ago, Harry would have risen at the first chance to rag on Malfoy. He might’ve still, he thinks, had he not seen what he had in the Pensieve that day. A manic Malfoy on Wizarding court-mandated house arrest, half-naked in his yard. Malfoy just days earlier, playing some part in planning the wedding of Paloma Bexley and Blaise Zabini, infatuated still with the latter, from what Harry could tell. Pity is what Harry thinks he feels. He doesn’t know enough for it to be sympathy. He can’t confirm that he’s changed, either, though. It’s quite possibly Malfoy would still look down his nose at him and Ron and Hermione — anyone who isn’t Blaise Zabini, Harry hypothesizes.

“Though you might not have matured at all in these past several years, Ron, everyone else has,” Hermione interjects into Harry’s thoughts. “Time stops for no one but you, apparently.”

Ron had given up on trying to secure Harry’s hesitant support in an already-lost argument with Hermione. “It’s have-a-dig-at-Ron night for you, is it, now? Is it something I did? Did the washing-up, didn’t I? And —“ He blanches, silent for a moment, fingers lacing together in his lap as he lowers his eyes. “I left the butter out this morning.”

Hermione’s lips curl into a faint smile, but she doesn’t acknowledge his words, gaze trained on her book.

Harry itches to share what he knows with his best mates. The memories can’t be too close to Blaise Zabini’s heart, as he’d been all too eager to fork them over. But he doesn’t, of course — because it would violate a magical contract. He’d lose his job, his credibility. Not because there’s a sad, private story about Malfoy and Zabini somewhere in those memories that he’s yet to piece together.

***

It’s the following morning that Harry finds Robards’ nervous trainees standing like the Queen’s Guard outside an interrogation room. He gives them a curious look, and then Robards appears startlingly fast from around the corner, nearly stepping on Harry’s toes, so fast Harry would’ve found it completely possible he’d Apparated onto Harry’s toes had that not been impossible inside the walls of the Ministry.

“Potter,” he splutters, precisely as Harry takes a step back and breathes out a choked “morning, Head Auror.” Robards watches Harry tensely, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides, as if testing to see if Harry might try to speak. He doesn’t. He thinks it’s the better idea.

“Potter,” Robards repeats. “We’ve a minor issue.” He runs his fingers through the front of his hair, which just accentuates his receding hairline. “We’ve come across some... _dubiously incriminating_ evidence in the Malfoy household.” Robards exchanges a look with his trainees, who look just as tense, but Robards is the first to look away, and awe floods their face, because they’d just shared a moment with the Head Auror. “Involving a more recent use of Dark magic.” Robards pauses again. Harry wishes he would get on with it, and his own eyebrow raise seems to pull Robards back into his usual mode of speaking. Harry’s never seen him so unsettled. “Thus, we’ve had to remove our only suspect from the scene of the crime, so he can’t tamper with anything at the Manor. It is my belief that he should remain under Auror supervision, but he’s not... cooperating.” Harry frowns, and he’s rather certain he knows which ‘he’ they’re referring to, but Robards doesn’t give him a chance to let it all sink in because he drags him through the door adjacent to the one his cronies guard. They enter the small, dark room, lit only by the harsh light streaming through a one-way glass window that peers into the bordering room. The room is identical to the one in which Harry and Creasey had questioned Zabini. Draco Malfoy sits behind the bare table, arms folded over his chest, scowling at the window as if he can see who’s behind it. His foot is taps impatiently against the concrete floor, his ankles are strangely bare where his ironed trousers cut off, and a tight, black jumper hugs his upper body. 

Harry tries and fails to hold in his laughter. He snorts and brings his hand up to his mouth, chancing a glance at Robards from the corner of his eye. Robards gives Harry a heated glare.

“Malfoy? You can’t get _Malfoy_ to cooperate?” Harry drags his teeth over his lower lip as he tries to fight an amused smile. His eyes move back to Malfoy, who hasn’t moved an inch, and looks like he might start steaming from his ears any moment. “Of course you can’t.” He can’t help it when he has to stifle a giggle-like noise. He wonders what Malfoy had said to Robards to ruffle him so. Robards is equal to Malfoy in height, most likely has double his physical and magical strength. But Harry can’t really blame him, not after Malfoy succeeded in getting under his skin for so many years. In hindsight, it’s laughable, though. “This is too good.” He momentarily forgets all respect for his boss and strides right out — though he has a feeling Robards is in need of his charge right then — and nudges past the Auror trainees so he can nudge open the door. Malfoy rises abruptly from his seat, and Harry closes the door carefully, so it only makes the slightest creak. There’s a moment of silence as Harry turns to face him, as if it takes Malfoy some time to control his own surprise. Internally, of course. His face is stone cold.

“They sent you, did they, Potter?” Malfoy says, fingers curling around the metal frame of the chair. He’s standing behind it, as if he needs a barrier between him and Harry. “I can’t say I’m not surprised. I should’ve known that after putting me through every witless goon in this Department all in the span of one morning, I’d eventually end up with The Savior himself.”

Harry hopes Robards is still behind the glass. He rubs at his jaw, mostly because he’s trying to fight a smile again.

“Good to see you, too, Malfoy,” he responds slowly, which ends up being a bad idea, because only six words are enough to set Malfoy off.

“Enough with the foolish niceties, Potter. Will someone finally explain to me why I can’t go back to my own home? I’m not a criminal. I haven’t done a bloody thing wrong. They — _you_ can’t keep me in a cell like some sort of prisoner, when you have no legal basis to do so. Innocent until proven guilty, and all, and after they analyze whatever-the-fuck it is they think they’ve found somewhere in the dark depths of my home, they’ll realize my magical signature is nowhere to be found on it, and considering the history of the various past frequenters of the location where whatever-the-fuck was discovered, I don’t believe that should be of any particular surprise. In fact, if they do find anything inculpating in my home, it’ll be because the Ministry representatives sent to purge the Manor of all Dark artifacts just after the war did a terrible job, and _you_ put the only living being who has any knowledge of Merlin-knows-what is buried beneath the floors and stored in the walls in Azkaban. No surprise there, either —“

Harry lets out a breathy laugh that cuts Malfoy short. He thinks if he didn’t interrupt him somehow, he’d never stop.

“You’ll probably be overjoyed to know that I _don’t care_ ,” Harry states. “So, kindly shut up.” Malfoy is confused, but he’s not offended. Harry supposes speaking his language is the best way to deal with him. It’s like putting on his old clothes from Hogwarts years. They don’t quite fit, but they feel familiar and strangely comfortable. Harry thinks if he hadn’t seen Malfoy in the Pensieve just the day before, though, he wouldn’t feel the strange hesitance he has swirling around in his gut right then. “It’s horrible that you’ve been uprooted, Malfoy,” he says with blatantly false sincerity. “What can the Auror Department do for you to make your displacement more comfortable for you?” Harry intends that question to be sarcastic as well, but Malfoy’s frown turns relieved. Which… is a mystifying thing. His frown doesn’t leave his features, but he still manages to exude an entirely different emotion. While examining Malfoy’s face, Harry’s mind takes him back to Zabini’s living room, then to the grounds of Malfoy Manor four years ago. He swallows thickly.

“Well, I’m glad you asked, Potter. Supervise me if you must. I’m not here to overstep Magical Law Enforcement, though I will warn you that supervising me will be terribly boring, because — did I mention? — I’m innocent. Additionally, if it is absolutely imperative to remove me from my home, I’d expect that the Department would be able to offer me alternate accommodations for the time being. You can do that, can’t you? You don’t make the laws, but you enforce them. You’re able to boot me from my home, so you must have some semblance of power over here.”

Harry clears his throat, hesitating, and just as he’s about to form some semblance of a response, the door opens behind him and Robards slips inside. Harry assumes he’s heard everything, by the way he launches into speaking.

“See, the thing is, Mr. Malfoy, that we, as a Department — We — We don’t run an inn. We can’t offer you — All suspects undergo the same treatment, and unless you have a second abode that we would have to have an Official clear — Or someone would volunteer to take you in temporarily while supervised —“

Harry was busy admiring how many sentences Robards could start without completely finishing them under Malfoy’s increasingly furious gaze. Or at least he’d thought he was, until he suddenly interjects with no prelude (or warning to the conscious part of him).

“I can. I can volunteer.”

Robards blinks and drops his hectically gesturing hands to his sides. Malfoy’s frown makes creases form on the sides of his nose as he wrinkles it. 

“Absolutely not,” Malfoy spits. “I’m not living in whatever whorehouse Potter calls a home.” Harry practically pouts. It’s an accusation built completely on false assumptions. He’s never had to resort to prostitution. Not while his reputation still precedes him, and he’s young and relatively likable on top of that.

“It’d… That’d be ideal. Yes. Potter is on your case, and he’s one of our very best,” Robards is saying, deep in thought as he stares at the corner of the small room. “Yes, yes. You’ve room to house him, haven’t you, Potter? And you’ve just returned, you’ve no other assignments at the moment. Yes. It’d only be for a short time, of course, but it is the very best we could offer — constant supervision from a top Auror. And one Auror is enough, especially for a suspect for whom all evidence has been in his favor until now.”

If Harry could read Malfoy, he’d say he thinks Robards is insane. He’s also not content with the arrangements, but he’s either mollified or distracted by Robards’ monologue.

“Yes. We’ll draw up some contracts, won’t we, Potter?” Robards continues as his eyes flicker to Harry, who nods tightly in return. What the hell is he doing? He’d wanted to be involved in the Malfoy case. That isn’t quite the same thing as inviting the primary suspect into his home, though. Perhaps it’s his pity kicking in. He mentally curses himself for being a nice person. Or then it’s Hermione getting into his head, and her conversation with Ron last night had subliminally convinced Harry that Malfoy may be a changed man. But poisonous toadstools hardly ever change their spots. 

“Yes, brilliant. I’ll live in Potter’s brothel by night. And by day? Am I free to roam and do as I please? Or will _he_ have to tag along on my every activity?”

The pity is gone. Harry’s jaw clenches slightly. “Susan’s going on maternity leave,” he says quickly, though it leaves his mouth dumbly and sounds irrelevant to the conversation until he get the chance to explain. Before, though, both Robards and Malfoy look at him curiously, one more savagely than the other. “I mean — yeah. Susan’s maternity leave starts soon. She’s quite the workaholic, so she won’t be gone long, I know that, but.” Harry shifts his glasses on his nose as he looks over at Malfoy with a faint smile. “I think Malfoy would make a great stand-in. Keep the Department organized while still being supervised himself.”

Malfoy’s eyes narrow. “I think that’s called indentured servitude,” he mutters.

But Robards is delighted. Harry thinks it’s because he’s grasping at straws. He’ll accept any half-logical help on dealing with an incredibly stubborn Malfoy. “That…” he starts, gaze now on the ceiling rather than the floor. “That just might work in everyone’s favor, Potter. Susan’s shoes would be filled, Merlin knows we need Potter ‘round the office, too, so he wouldn’t have to serve just as a glorified body guard until this blows over, _and_ you, Mr. Malfoy, would have constant updates on your father’s case and the state of your home.”

Malfoy pushes the chair in beneath the table. It screeches against the floor. “This is absolutely ridiculous. There’s no way you can force me to not only shack up with Potter, but to do menial work for the bloody Ministry.”

Robards seems to have regained his full composure and confidence, and his chest puffs out slightly as he stands up and fixes his eyes on Malfoy. “We’ve already given you more than enough options. You may stay in a holding cell until your home is cleared, stay under Potter’s Auror supervision both in his home and during the day, or stay in Potter’s home and spent his working hours in the Auror Department under more relaxed, general surveillance and keeping yourself busy. Based on our meeting with you yesterday, Mr. Malfoy, I don’t believe you mentioned occupational responsibilities that would prevent you from complying.”

“Did you just call me unemployed, Head Auror? I’ll have you know, I have my feet in many doors. I keep myself busy,” Malfoy huffs, though his restraint is weakening, Harry can tell. He feels caught in the crossfire, though he’s really the root of it — his offer of accommodation out of sympathy, then his suggestion of employment out of spite. Harry presses his back against the wall behind him, falling into a bit of Robards’ shadow. He considers the decisions he’s made in the past several minutes, then decides to appreciate the twenty-two years he’s been on this Earth, the eleven that he’s known about magic. He feels he needs to reminisce, now that there’s a chance Malfoy could kill him in his sleep. However, he seems rather harmless if Harry’s judge of character is anything to go by, full of fire but also of empty threats.

Robards is busy ignoring Malfoy, conjuring a scroll on which to draft up a contract, because they simply can’t have enough records and parchment — only half of which is ever revisited — jammed into their Department. He floats it over to Malfoy, offers him a cordial smile, and then dips out with a supportive squeeze to Harry’s shoulder. Perhaps if he’d stayed a moment longer, Malfoy’s fury would’ve urged him to retreat back into his frenzied shell. Harry almost — almost — wants to do the same when he’s left alone with Malfoy post-series-of-regrettable-decisions. When he looks over, Malfoy has clearly made a decision, though, and is just releasing the quill as the contract curls up tightly and Vanishes. He avoids Harry’s eyes, fingers on the back of the chair again, now drumming quickly against the metal surface, before clearing his throat.

“Bloody hell,” is what Malfoy sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose and then straightening out his shoulders at once. “Alright, Potter. You win. For the second time, at that. Tell me you’re happy, at least. Rub it in.”

Harry is confused. His eyes narrow. “You think I’m happy I’ve been tasked with watching your sorry arse all day and night?”

Malfoy snorts. “Clearly. You practically threw yourself at the opportunity. And you really tossed a cherry on top, too, didn’t you, getting me to work under you? I feel as if all the twisted dreams I suspected you had back at Hogwarts are finally coming true for you. Good for you, then. I really hadn’t expected your Chosen One complex to be eternal, that perhaps your experiences had humbled you. I’d evidently overestimated you. We’re right back where we’ve always been.” His lips are pursed sourly as he finally lifts his eyes to look Harry over.

“I’m not getting anything out of this, Malfoy, not any more than you are. I volunteered.” Stupidly. “And I’m your best option, mad as that sounds,” he grits out.

Malfoy’s stare is lazy and blank, but the rest of his expression is tense. “Mad, indeed. Show me to this secretary. I’ve been in this room for Merlin knows how long.”

Harry’s commiseration for Malfoy is zero to none as he steps out of the way of the door and draws it open for him. Robards’ trainees are still standing outside as they both exit, and Harry sees Malfoy sneer as they pale nearly to Malfoy’s own color at the sight of him. He walks a few feet ahead of Malfoy, and the sound of conversation grows louder as they draw nearer down the hall to the cubicle-filled room. Harry expects the hustle and bustle of the Headquarters to fall completely silent as they enter, but the few that even spare a glance their way only eye Malfoy disinterestedly and then return to their tasks. Harry supposes they’ve all seen worse in their time. 

As Harry approaches Susan’s desk, he throws a glance over his shoulder to check that Malfoy is still following. He’s there, all right, arms folded tightly across his chest, readily returning Harry’s eye contact with an accusing look. Harry just sighs, quirks a brow, and turns back around. Ron is leaning over Susan’s cubicle with his arms folded over the flimsy divider, chatting amicably with her. He smiles absently when Harry joins his side, gives him a jerk of his eyebrows as a way of greeting, and is completely at ease until he notices Harry’s rather hard-to-miss company. Ron’s jaw and fists clench simultaneously, but he doesn’t speak a word.

“Hey, Suze,” Harry greets, and Susan lifts her auburn head to smile pleasantly at Harry. She leans back in her chair and laces her fingers over her swollen stomach.

“It’d be too good to be true if you were actually here to give me all your overdue paperwork, Harry, so I must ask — what can I do for you?”

Harry smiles sheepishly and rubs the back of his neck. “Agh, you’ve got me. I’ve — I’ve actually found you a stand-in. Thought that might be useful, seeing as you’re about to pop, and all.”

“Have you really? Who?”

When Harry goes to gesture to Malfoy, he’s not where he was standing last. Harry whips around in a circle like a bloody fool only to find Malfoy’s on the other side of Ron, now also leaning against Susan’s cubicle. Ron is watching him critically, but Malfoy doesn’t seem to notice. Or care, maybe.

“That would be me. Before you say anything, I openly acknowledge that Potter’s hiring abilities are absolute rubbish. But I’m not completely useless,” Malfoy says dryly to Susan.

Susan blinks, but her hesitation is ephemeral. “Draco! Oh, wow. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” she says and sits up in her chair. “You — You look good! Is that a Burberry jumper? I bought the same for my boyfriend in green about a month ago. It’s lovely.”

Both Ron and Harry are caught off guard when Malfoy smiles at her. “It is, isn’t it? Thank you. You look as if pregnancy’s treated you well. Care to show me the ins and outs of your trade here?“ He casts a look around the room, which lands eventually on Ron. Malfoy cringes absently, but his expression is agreeable as he looks at Susan once again. “The sooner you make me a prodigy of desk work, the sooner you get to leave this place.”

Susan jokes halfheartedly that she loves her job, but gives Malfoy a sneaky smile as she gestures for him to join her in her cubicle.

“Excuse you, Weasley,” Malfoy mutters as he steps past Ron and Harry. Ron takes Harry roughly by the arm, drags him about five feet away, and lets him go just as painfully. Harry knows he deserves it, though, so he tries to be discreet about rubbing his arm where it aches.

“What in Merlin’s saggy, hairy left nut did you do, Harry?” Ron says under his breath, affixing him with a glare similar to the one Malfoy had given him. It’s less startling, because even if Ron is larger and broader than Malfoy, it’s nearly June and he’s wearing a purple and lilac fairisle jumper. 

“I know,” Harry says, which doesn’t quite answer the question. “It’s temporary. And think of it this way — now he’ll have at least five Aurors on him whenever you’re around.” He ponders for a moment, placing his hands on his hips. “And he’ll be close enough that you can slip U-No-Poo into his tea when he’s not looking.”

Ron’s stormy eyes flicker over to where Malfoy sits on the edge of Susan’s desk, peering over her shoulder at her filing system. The storm subsides slightly. Harry knows he’s hit the right spot. He claps Ron on the shoulder, passes by him slowly. “Sorry, mate. Got Zabini’s memories to watch. Don’t kill him without me.”

Ron snorts. Harry thinks he might have reason to worry. 

*** 

“No! No, no, no, no, _no_. Iggy. Do you want to die? Is this your way of telling me you’d like to die? Because I’m quite fond of you, so I do think I would have mercy on you in the case that you truly did want to leave this Earth.”

“No! No, Master Draco, never! Iggy not wants to die! Iggy thinks it’s so pretty, Iggy wanted to pick one flower for Tilly, Master, just one…”

It doesn’t look it, but Malfoy’s standing in the garden just outside the breezy back doors of Malfoy Manor, the same one Harry had followed Blaise Zabini through in the other memory. It’s even livelier than it was in the dark; greener, dotted with plants in springy shades of the rainbow. Malfoy dons white, fitted trousers — _really_ fitted, Harry thinks — though they’re smudged with dirt. His white button-up is rolled up to the elbows, and it washes him out, makes the sun reflect brightly off his white hair and wan skin.

“I bet Tilly would love a poisonous flower, wouldn’t she? Doesn’t matter if it’s just one or if it’s a hundred, Iggy. Brugmansia is terribly toxic. Let’s just put them in the ground, shall we?” Malfoy smiles in a fond way as he slips the gardening gloves back onto his fingers. When Harry gets an odd feeling he’s been noticed as Malfoy glances his way, he notes it’s just Blaise Zabini lounging against the open door of the Manor whom he looks at. Malfoy picks up a trowel, twirls it between his fingers. Then he cocks his head to the side, lazily points the point of the trowel at Zabini, one eye closed as he squints to aim it. “Bet I could hex your balls off, even with this.”

“You’re not that good,” Zabini says, remaining in the shade, thumbs slotted into the pockets of his trousers.

“Try me, Blaise,” Malfoy mutters, and then shifts the point of the trowel slightly to the right when footsteps echo from within the house. Narcissa Malfoy emerges, followed by a small house-elf whose big eyes match the color of the vast lavender bushes framing the back of the Manor. She carries a tray of glasses and a pitcher of lemonade. Narcissa’s hair is whiter, frizzier in that dry, untamable way that comes with old age, and there are dark circles under her eyes. She smiles at Blaise, but gives Malfoy an iron stare.

“Put that down, Draco.”

Malfoy smirks at his mother’s words, raises his eyebrows pointedly at Zabini. “See? Mother knows I could hex off balls with this.” He glances back at Narcissa. “But I can’t, Mother dearest. Mind Healer-mandated, remember?”

Narcissa sighs — whether it’s at Malfoy’s crude language or his impertinence, Harry’s not sure — and she gestures for the house-elf to leave the tray as she turns on her kitten heel to disappear inside. Zabini lets out a chuckle, approaching Malfoy slowly. He’s dropped to the dirt on his knees, is digging a small hole, presumably for one of the small trees with the big, yellow trumpet-like flowers that Iggy the house-elf had so wanted to touch. Zabini stops only once he’s close enough for his knees to press into Malfoy’s shoulder. Malfoy sits back on his haunches, tilts his head up toward Zabini, and squints against the sun.

“Laugh all you want, Blaise. Horticultural therapy is _real_.” Malfoy seems to be fighting a smile, though he looks unconcerned for the most part. “Studies have shown there to be a direct correlation between getting dirt and microorganisms under your bleeding fingernails and healing post-traumatic stress.”

Zabini’s fingers card into Malfoy’s hair, which still glints in the sun, and Malfoy shuts his eyes, dropping the trowel so he can grip Zabini’s ankle with his gloved hand. Iggy is unbothered, working hard to dig holes for aconite several flowerbeds away.

“Take those infernal things off your hands,” Zabini quietly tells Malfoy.

Malfoy tugs the gloves off and leaves them laying in the grass, and he teasingly bites at the fly of Zabini’s trousers before he rises up onto his feet. It’s an elegant motion, Malfoy all long, lean legs and lines. Harry notices his skin isn’t as wan as he’d thought. Malfoy’s still pale, but there’s a slightly pinker tinge to his usual pallor. Harry wrings out his hands, because Malfoy kisses Zabini right before his eyes again, just a light peck of lips. Zabini’s hands are suddenly greedy on Malfoy’s arse, though. Harry can’t look away. He’ll have to wallow in self-loathing later.

“Mmm. How silly of me. Thought you’d come just to laugh at me in my poorly-suited gardening attire, tell me over and over how much easier it’d be to move the dirt with magic. But that would _defeat the tactile purpose of the therapy, Mr. Malfoy_ , as Healer Patil would say.” Malfoy fingers the collar of Blaise’s shirt, lips quirked up just at one side in a lopsided smirk. Harry wonders how long has passed between his memory and the episode at night. Malfoy’s less frenzied — perhaps it’s the therapy.

“That’s the best tactile therapy she could come up with, huh?” Zabini’s fingertips dig in right below Malfoy’s arse. “You’re positive she didn’t prescribe anything else?”

Malfoy tilts his forehead onto Zabini’s shoulder, chuckling shakily. “You’re a prick.”

“Something tells me you don’t mind.”

Harry wants to cringe, but can’t. He realizes his mouth is dry.


	5. Chapter 5

If Harry had to make an educated guess, he would say Blaise Zabini chose to give him these extraneous memories for a reason. He could easily seek him out, employ the valid excuse of ‘official Auror business,’ and ask him. He’s not sure he’d be able to look Zabini in the eye, though. He has a feeling Zabini knew that when he’d let Harry into his mind.

He’s on his way back from the Hall of Memory, has to make an official, objective report of Zabini’s memory while it’s still fresh in his mind. When he returns to the Headquarters, everything looks as it always does, except Malfoy is now sitting at Susan’s desk with Susan herself nowhere in sight, and Clem Creasey is leaning against Malfoy’s — Susan’s — desk, gazing down at him with keen interest. Harry narrows his eyes, passes by them swiftly on the way to his own cubicle. It’s impossible, Harry supposes, that Malfoy could have done anything to Susan with twenty Aurors milling about around him, so it’s safe to assume she’s safe and still breathing, just not in this room.

“You new here? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you ‘round before,” Creasey is saying, biting his lower lip as he looks Malfoy up and down. Harry snorts in passing, as does Malfoy, which prompts an awkward exchange of glances as Malfoy frowns at him. Luckily, Malfoy has the more immediate problem of Creasey to deal with.

“New, of a sort,” he mutters, navigating through the organized chaos on Susan’s desk until he finds the stack of parchment he was apparently looking for. “Your secretary was on the verge of giving birth behind this desk, I’m sure you noticed.”

Harry takes a seat behind his own desk, kicks his feet up onto it as he Conjures the Memory Log form. The thing is, Creasey probably hadn’t noticed. Malfoy doesn’t realize that yet.

“Really? I should congratulate her,” Creasey says, genuinely surprised, but this newfound piece of information is clearly not at the forefront of his mind. “I’m Clem. Clem Creasey. Who’re you, then?”

Harry has to stifle a laugh. The look Malfoy gives Creasey is scathing, and he looks pointedly at the wall of bulletin boards behind Creasey, where numerous pictures of Lucius Malfoy tacked up are interspersed with shots of Malfoy himself. If Malfoy is still holding out hope that Creasey isn’t oblivious and ignorant, he’s fighting a losing battle.

“You’re American, aren’t you?” Malfoy sighs and angles himself away from Creasey in his chair, unbothered.

Creasey is unbothered, too, though he doesn’t leave. He’s told Harry too many times over beers that perseverance is his best trait. He’s certainly perseverant. That’s all Harry can say on that topic.

“Come on, blondie. Can’t evade me forever. I work here, too, y’know. I’m an Auror.” Creasey smirks, drums his fingers against Malfoy’s desk.

“Yes, I had deduced that on my own. Why are you still here?” Malfoy doesn’t even look at him.

“Just said I worked here, didn’t I?”

Malfoy swivels abruptly, stares at Creasey from beneath his furrowed brow. “I didn’t mean in this building, you twiggy git.” It’s ironic, because Harry thinks Malfoy could identify as just as much of a twiggy git as Creasey, but it’s spot-on either way.

Creasey is unfazed, though he stands up from Malfoy’s desk and points handguns at him, flashing his signature, obnoxious smile. “I’ll get it out of you someday, blondie. You may not think you want to know me, but you do.” 

Malfoy doesn’t reply, and Harry can’t tell from where he’s sitting, because he hasn’t seen Malfoy’s wand once since he’s arrived, but as Creasey strides away, he stumbles suddenly over an invisible obstacle on the floor. Or then Malfoy’s hit him with a Trip Jinx. Nobody in the room even looks twice at Creasey scrambling off the floor. He darts a look back at Malfoy, who convincingly feigns obliviousness. If Malfoy can keep Creasey miserable by day, perhaps guarding him won’t be as miserable by night.

***

Harry’s supposition was wrong. He realizes it the moment he traipses over to Susan’s desk around five that evening, when the Headquarters begins to clear out, excepting those on night duty. The look Robards had given him on his way out had been full of gratefulness and encouragement. Harry doesn’t think either will be prove to be helpful.

“As if this day couldn’t possibly get any worse,” Malfoy grits out in greeting. He locks Susan’s file cabinets with a little wave of his wand, and when he stands, there’s a massive dragon leather weekender bag on his elbow. Malfoy rolls his eyes at Harry’s ogling. “My house-elf brought it. Can we get on with this?”

“Right.” Harry coughs awkwardly. He gestures for Malfoy to follow him, and sets down the corridor toward the lifts.

“You know, Potter, I feel like we should sooner rather than later address the hippogriff in the room, seeing as I’ll be living in your home for some time,” Malfoy says from behind him, which makes Harry’s brows furrow, but he doesn’t acknowledge him. “I can recognize and be grateful for the fact that you were the reason my mother and I were acquitted all those years ago. So... thank you for that. But I can also remember that it was you who submitted us to two years of home confinement. So fuck you. For... for that.” He clears his throat. Harry rolls his eyes slowly.

“Did that really need saying, Malfoy?”

“It’s a weight off my chest, surely. The ‘fuck you’ was quite heavy.”

“Right.”

“Secondly, though, when you invite a guest to your home and they arrive bearing luggage, the polite thing to do is to offer to take it from them,” states Malfoy snidely. As they reach the lifts and one arrives in a timely manner, Harry very stubbornly turns to wrench the bag from Malfoy’s arms, at which Malfoy’s face is torn between disgusted and startled, and he stalks into the lift, only to find himself face-to-face with Danica.

“I was just coming to find you,” she says. She’s two years younger than Harry, a Ravenclaw, bronze-skinned and with a taste for deep, red lipsticks and a slightly husky voice. She’s damn sexy, is what she is. She touches Harry’s chest gently with her hand, fingers curling into his jacket, though her eyes light up with intrigue at the sight of Malfoy. Malfoy, on the other hand, hasn’t seemed to even notice her, arms folded over his chest as he stands facing the grates as the elevator sets off.

“Draco Malfoy?” Danica asks Harry, a bit too loudly, because both Draco and Harry look her way. She just smiles curiously at Draco, twists her fingers into the lapel of Harry’s coat as she cocks her head to the side. “Are you still on duty, then? Is he with you?”

Harry opens his mouth to respond, but apparently even that takes too long, because Malfoy sighs with impatience after about a half-second. “Potter is my nanny, yes,” says Malfoy. “By his own choice. Please don’t let my presence in his home keep you from your... plans. I only say this, by the way, because I recognize your face from the papers that report daily on every new hair that grows on Potter’s chest and every breath he takes. If half of Wizarding Britain didn’t already know you as ‘mystery brunette,’ what I just said would have been slightly disturbing.” He frowns absentmindedly at the ceiling, then returns his gaze to Danica. “Charmed, I’m sure.”

Harry scrubs his hand through the back of his hair as Malfoy speaks, gauging Danica’s reaction as he looks between them. She looks slightly too fascinated for Harry’s liking.

“Yes, I’m on duty. Can’t very well trust this one yet. I’ll see you soon, though, yeah?” he rushes to say before Danica can get a word in, and takes her by the cheeks so he can kiss her briefly before the doors open in a timely manner on the eighth level. “Come on, Malfoy.”

Harry and Malfoy leave a stunned Danica to blink after them, still standing in the lift. “Invite me for tea!” he thinks he hears her call, but he strides with intent past the gilded fireplaces toward the Apparition point.

“Did I just woo your girlfriend, Potter? That wasn’t very hard,” Malfoy says. 

“Not my girlfriend.”

“Wooed your sex-friend, then.”

Harry rolls his eyes and then turns to face Malfoy, offering him the arm that isn’t clutching Malfoy’s ridiculous bag that probably cost more than Harry’s whole outfit put together, in addition to a kidney and part of his liver. It takes Malfoy a moment to understand, and he clears his throat as he curls his long fingers lightly around Harry’s forearm. Harry simply watches him for a moment, because he knows it’ll piss Malfoy off, and once they’ve been stationary for thirty seconds and Malfoy is still clinging to Harry’s arm, Harry hears Malfoy spit “for fuck’s sa —“ before he Disapparates.

The sun has set and they’re on Grimmauld Place, the street perfectly silent and the gravel beneath their feet damp and shiny from afternoon showers in the light of the clouded moon.

“Well?” says Malfoy, not quite sounding pleased with their location.

“I live at number twelve,” Harry explains. If he’s going to be Malfoy’s nanny, as Malfoy himself put it, he might as well be an arse about it.

Malfoy looks from the gilded numbers on one house to the other, then peers behind him at the other side of the street. “Potter, stop fucking with me.”

“Number twelve.”

Malfoy hisses out an impatient sigh, like he’s given up, but then Harry is able to watch it moments later on Malfoy’s face as the house appears for him. The shock and confusion is fleeting, though, replaced with annoyance fantastically fast. Malfoy’s nose wrinkles up as he frowns. It’s... not _not_ endearing. What?

Harry smiles to himself and hoists Malfoy’s bag up higher on his arm as he traipses up the front walk to the door. Malfoy follows him in silently. Harry feels at ease, finally, in control and in his own home, his own, recognizable domain, even with an unexpected guest, until he the sound of several voices echo from the direction of the kitchen. It’s Kreacher’s bullfrog-like croak, but he isn’t alone. Harry draws his wand and holds his arm out to the side to gesture for Malfoy to stay back as he edges slowly toward the kitchen, shushing him with a finger to his own lips. But Malfoy, of course, shoves right past Harry’s arm and strides down the long hall, bursting through the doors to the kitchen.

“Malfoy,” Harry hisses in fury, but the door has already swung shut behind him, and he has to jog to catch up. What he finds in his kitchen isn’t a dangerous intruder — though it might be up to interpretation — but rather two house-elves, one clinging to each of Malfoy’s legs. Kreacher is present, too, glowering at the trio and the dishware that certainly doesn’t belong to Harry that’s been piled up on the counter.

“The Aurors said you’d be at Harry Potter’s, Master, and they keeps taking things away from the home, and Iggy and Tilly tries to stop them...” the female elf is telling Malfoy, tugging at the hem of his jumper.

“Master Harry,” Kreacher starts aggressively, tone bitter as he points a knobby finger at Malfoy. “Theses thieves thinks they’s going to move into Master’s house. I says that Master Harry Potter lives here, _alone_ , but theys don’t stop, and —“

“Righy. Sorry about that, Kreacher. Recent development. Malfoy’s going to be, er. Staying here. For indefinitely long.” Harry rubs at his own neck and jaw, gaze resting on Malfoy, who removes his palms from the tops of the house-elves’ heads when he finds Harry looking. Harry supposes the treatment of house-elves at Malfoy Manor has undergone some sort of change since Lucius’ detainment. He clears his throat, regarding whom he assumes to be Malfoy’s elves. “I didn’t know this was part of our agreement, though.”

Kreacher’s accusatory finger has gone limp, and he mutters in a tone of awe, awe enough to make his voice crack, “sir Malfoy, a descendant of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black?” but Harry isn’t listening, and neither is Malfoy, because he’s talking. Of course.

“Oh, shut your trap, Potter. If anything, Iggy and Tilly will make your life easier while I’m here. They know me. They’ll take care of me,” Malfoy huffs. It’s not an outrageous assertion to make, but despite the fact that house-elf magic has saved his neck on an occasion or two, he feels like he should be skeptical of the two at Malfoy’s feet. They live to serve Malfoy’s every will and want, after all. “Merlin knows what that brute over there will sneak in my tea,” he adds, eyes narrowing on Kreacher.

The thought that Malfoy will be drinking tea, possibly Harry’s tea, under Harry’s roof, is an odd concept Harry hasn’t yet considered. Malfoy would be doing all his Malfoy things, but just now under Harry’s supervision.

“Kreacher would never harm sir Draco, son of Narcissa Black! Never!” Kreacher cries at Malfoy’s suspicion.

Harry takes off his glasses to rub his palm over his face, exhaling deeply as he puts them back into place and then looks, one by one, from Kreacher to the two house-elves to Malfoy. Malfoy’s hands are on his hips, and he’s staring at Harry impatiently. It’s become too familiar of a stance to Harry — not that Malfoy himself knows that.

“Kreacher, make friends with... er, those two —“

“Tilly and Iggy, sir!” one of the elves crows enthusiastically.

“— Right. Kreacher, make friends with them. I’ll show Malfoy to his room.” Harry watches them all warily, then heaves a sigh as he heads out of the kitchen. Just that morning, he’d been living just with Kreacher, who only bothered him at mealtimes and otherwise went about his own business of upkeep in the home. He picks up Malfoy’s bag and starts up the creaky stairs, a flash of white and quick, padding footsteps confirming that Malfoy is following. Now he’s got two more elves and Draco Malfoy as housemates, whom he strongly believes could easily be the equivalent of at least three unusually irritating people. They pass the Silenced portait of old Walburga Black, though the drapes billow as if moved by hot air. Harry’s sure he could’ve figured out some way around a Permanent Sticking Charm, but there’s something to be said for sentimental value. Or un-said.

“As a suspect, Malfoy, you’re asking a lot of me to allow your little friends to stay here with you,” Harry says, contemplating in which room to place Malfoy.

Malfoy scoffs. “My mother and father have disappeared off the face of the Earth, and I’ve been evicted from my own home. I know that you freed our old elf and all, but they’re not all batty like him. Iggy and Tilly wouldn’t know what to do with themselves if I wasn’t there.” He sniffs. Harry wonders briefly if he’s judging the air quality of the second floor or some other Malfoy-shite like that. “And I enjoy their company,” he tacks on, clears his throat.

At this, Harry blinks over his shoulder at Malfoy with mild curiosity. He doesn’t have much time to stare, though, because Malfoy shoves past him and strides down the hall. He opens the first door he sees, peers inside, and then shuts it rapidly. Harry is, after all, only one person. He sleeps in one bedroom, and there are many of them in the house, many of them that had felt wrong of him to change or touch even after he’d moved in.

“I’ve only been here once, Potter, and it had to have been at least a decade and a half ago,” Malfoy says as he trudges up the next flight of stairs. “I had expected it to change at least a little bit.”

Harry opens his mouth to protest, because it is bloody different. Malfoy doesn’t know half the shit they’d cleared out when the Order moved in. But Malfoy is out of sight, and there’s no use complaining to the walls, unless it’s to Walburga downstairs, and even she can’t reply. He takes the stairs two at a time, cursing Malfoy for not putting a Feather-light charm on his bag, and when he finds him, he’s standing in the middle of Harry’s bedroom. It’s a bit slovenly, with clothes thrown here or there, the curtains shut and the bed unmade. Malfoy cringes, shifts his hands where they sit against his hips.

“Says a lot, Potter, that this is the only room in this house that looks like it’s seen signs of life in years,” he grumbles. If Malfoy dares to ask for this room, of all of them in the house — Harry doesn’t get to finish his thought before Malfoy shoulders past him again and heads down the hall to the other room. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m not going to live in your pigsty. I’ll just have Tilly and Iggy clean out one of the ancient bedrooms.” Malfoy opens the door to the room directly adjacent to Harry’s, considers it, then approaches Harry to wrench his bag from him without so much as a word. As if on cue, the two elves Apparate onto the landing, just before the stairs that leads up to Sirius and Regulus’ rooms, and they file after Malfoy into the bedroom. The door shuts. Harry stands in the hall, dumbfounded. His fingers belatedly curl into themsleves around the air that no long is filled by Malfoy’s bag. He almost feels like walking away and pretending he never took Malfoy home with him — Bugger, it sounds mad when he puts it like that — because he’s certain Malfoy wants nothing more right then than for Harry to ignore his existence. He’s got a feeling he’ll end up seeing Malfoy more often than not, though. They’re roommates now, after all.

*** 

He doesn’t. Harry doesn’t see Malfoy. For the next two days, except when Malfoy emerges in the morning so Harry can Side-Along him to the Ministry, and when he retreats in the evening when they return, it’s as if he doesn’t live there. What’s peculiar is that Harry sees much less of Kreacher, too, though he’s not particularly bothered by that as Kreacher’s personality even on his best days is anything but sunny. It’s just another strange outcome of Malfoy’s arrival. 

Malfoy’s house-elves, on the other hand, seem to be having the time of their life at Grimmauld Place. When they’re not locked up in the room nextdoor to Harry’s with Malfoy, they’re right underneath Harry’s nose, picking up after him like he’s a toddler on a chaotic rampage. They put his shoes away for him and transport the firewhisky glasses he leaves lying around to the kitchen sink, and of course, wash the aforementioned glasses. It’s no doubt got something to do with Malfoy’s own perception of Harry as some sort of slob. It’s not completely unfounded, Harry’ll admit.

Even at the Ministry, Malfoy keeps to himself. Or, rather, ‘keeps away from Harry’ would be a better way to put it. He fills Susan’s shoes seamlessly, chats with Harry’s co-workers like he never lorded over them with his stupid Prefect pin and tormented them at Hogwarts. Pansy still adores Malfoy, it seems, and she smiles more often now that he’s around than anyone in the Headquarters has seen her do in the past two years. Ron is horrified, to say the least. The only person who seems to like Malfoy more than Pansy and Susan is Clem Creasey.

On the third morning of Malfoy’s stay, he comes down the stairs to meet Harry as he always does. He’s in a courgette-green jumper and pressed, gray trousers. And Harry doesn’t know when half his wardrobe had become Muggle business-casual, but he doesn’t mind it. Malfoy’s brows scrunch together minutely when he catches Harry staring, though he doesn’t comment, just lays his hand expectantly on top of Harry’s awaiting wrist and sighs.

“Quit checking me out and hurry up with the routine descent to hell, Potter.”

The memories of Blaise Zabini still seem like fiction to Harry when he tries to compare them with the reality of the Malfoy standing a foot away from him. They’re much too clear to have ever been altered by Zabini, though. Harry’s lips press together into a fine line as he rolls his eyes, and then he turns on the spot.

*** 

The Lucius Malfoy case is a bust. Everyday, newer and newer evidence is brought in for lab analysis from the Manor, and everyday after that, the results come back down to the Headquarters that the remaining Dark magic contained in those objects has remained untouched for years. Harry, technically on the case still, has to sit in on many inconclusive meetings about Lucius’ whereabouts. There are no leads, aside from the dubious false alarms that wizards and witches across the UK and even beyond insist on setting off whenever they think they witness a puff of black smoke or a flash of white hair. They’re panicking. Harry understands. He is, too. Mostly because it’s been several days since he’s had a good shag, and though he doesn’t think Malfoy would give a fuck, he’s intent on keeping Danica separate from... whatever this debacle is. He strides out of yet another Lucius-meeting, only to find Malfoy seated at Harry’s desk. In Harry’s chair, like it’s Malfoy’s fucking chair. But it’s Harry’s. He watches for a moment, because Malfoy’s feet are on Harry’s desk, though they’re crossed primly at the ankles and somehow non-offending in his clean shoes (how are the soles clean, too? Doesn’t he ever step outside?), and his nimble fingers are leafing quickly through parchment Harry can only assume came from somewhere within the unholy, dusty depths of his desk. He clears his throat.

“What’re you doing?”

Malfoy’s eyes flicker up to him, and then back down to his busy hands.

“Before Susan left, she warned me about you, Potter. How your desk’s got an infinite extension charm when it comes to swallowing up paperwork. Now, it’s not infinite, because that’s just bloody impossible, but it’s rather close. And, being the poor soul charged with keeping you Aurors from running around like headless hippogriffs, I came to see it for myself. And your workspace is an atrocity, Potter. Moldy food? Really? I know you were never the brightest, but I’m reasonably confident you can handle a Vanishing charm.”

Harry scoffs. “You — I’m saving it for later, clearly. And are you even allowed to be doing this? Isn’t this some sort of violation of privacy?”

Malfoy frowns, sits up in the chair so he can draw open one of Harry’s drawers and slot the parchment into a folder. Because... There’s a filing cabinet inside that most certainly wasn’t there that morning. Or whenever Harry last decided to look for paperwork. A year ago, perhaps?

“If you’re overdue on seventeen different cases, Potter, I think my intervention is perfectly called-for. The cleaner your workspace is, the faster you’re able to sort through all your shit. So, you’re welcome.” Malfoy rises, but he doesn’t leave. “And I thought it would remain work-related until I found these.” Malfoy picks up a magazine off a neat but fat stack he’s placed on Harry’s desk. He narrows his eyes at Harry as he lifts it. “Really?”

It’s a porn magazine. _Wicked Witch_. A witch with jet-black hair and a robe to match — in the new, cropped style that’s become popular in recent years — is on its cover, her fingers clenching the robe shut just below her massive tits. Harry’s eyes widen.

“I’ve never seen that in my life!” he protests, tearing the magazine from Malfoy’s hand so he’s not displaying it to the entire Headquarters, tossing it quickly onto the pile.

A familiar cackle sounds from behind him, and Ron grasps onto Harry’s shoulder, apparently having difficulty keeping himself upright as he laughs. “Holy shit. Shit, mate. I forgot all about those. You really do never clean your desk, do you?” he wheezes. Malfoy’s lips curl up in something of a smile. Harry whips around, scandalized.

“You put those in there?”

“Yeah, mate. For you to find. Right after you and Gin split.” Ron wipes a tear from the corner of his eye, and surprisingly enough, turns his grin on Malfoy. “Nice one, Malfoy. Could’ve gone my whole life without remembering and been ripped off of a good laugh.”

“Potter, you pig,” Pansy mutters scornfully as she walks past, giving Harry the eye. Ron bursts into another round of uncontrollable laughter, his fingers digging harder into Harry’s shoulder. Harry frowns, begrudgingly Vanishes the Wicked Witch issues from his desk.

“Just wait ‘til I tell Hermione you got hold of a shitload of porn,” he huffs. Malfoy crosses his arms over his chest and smirks mildly at Harry’s words, though he’s off a moment later toward his rightful desk. Harry’s eyes follow, but he looks away in when he hears Ron finally catch his breath and sees him pale, which makes his freckles stand out starker against his skin.

“You wouldn’t.”

***

By now, Harry has made the conclusion that Blaise Zabini has had nothing to do with Lucius Malfoy’s disappearance, and he simply handed his memories over to Harry to, one, acquit himself, and two, to fuck with him. It doesn’t stop Harry from reviewing the remaining memories. Should it? It probably should. But for some reason, he’s letting Zabini fuck with him. It’s hard to come up with justification when he’s standing in Malfoy’s bedroom again.

“Draco.”

“Yes?”

Malfoy’s in a dressing gown, his hair damp, and he’s reclined on his bed. There’s a notebook in his lap, and he’s holding an ostentatious, self-inking quill. Harry views him from his profile, and Zabini is head-on with Malfoy, standing at the foot of the bed.

“What are you doing,” Zabini sighs, pressing his palms to the edge of the mattress and leaning his weight into them. It’s not a question, and he stares at Malfoy impatiently.

“Oh, nothing, Blaise. Just saving my family from bankruptcy. Don’t mind me. Crunching numbers, and all. Easy stuff, if you’ve got the mind for it.” Malfoy doesn’t look up from the notebook, just flexes his toes a bit as he crosses his legs at the ankles.

Zabini rolls his eyes. “Draco, babe. You must understand that maths is only foreplay to you. It’s really rather one-sided.”

Malfoy chuckles and straightens his legs completely, eyes still cast down as his quill scratches against the parchment. “Is it?” he asks softly, his tone like the soft scratch of skin against sheets, as opposed to the clatter of a knife against a slate floor, like it usually is. Then he bends his legs at the knees, casually spreads them apart, and based on the look consuming Zabini’s eyes, Harry can only assume there’s nothing underneath but Malfoy. “Hm. I disagree with you. But that’s not new. I almost wish they’d mandated Muggle maths at Hogwarts, so I could’ve watched you slack off and whinge about it like you do with everything else. It’s really not that difficult.”

Harry doesn’t think any of that actually penetrated Zabini’s skull. He seems to choke on his own saliva before he regains his signature composure and blinks at Malfoy. “Right. ‘Cos I slacked off purely for your entertainment.”

Malfoy’s lips curl in a way that makes Harry’s stomach do the same.

“Well, yes.”

“Shut up. You gonna let me jump your bones?” Zabini reaches out, to touch what exactly, Harry’s not sure, but before he can lean too far, Malfoy’s toes are pressing to the middle of his forehead, holding him in place. And it should be gross, Harry should find it gross, but Malfoy’s feet are bony and long and the dressing gown slips down slightly over his thigh. Zabini glowers at him.

“Not so fast, Blaise,” Malfoy mutters. “Years of being handed everything you could ever want on a Goblin-wrought silver platter has done you no favors —“

“Oh, sod off, you fucking hypocrite —“

Malfoy squawks indignantly when Zabini grabs him by his ankles and tugs him down the bed, the notebook and quill falling from his grasp as he finds himself relocated to the very edge of the mattress with Zabini between his legs. Harry swallows thickly as Malfoy stares down his  long nose into Zabini’s eyes, his scowl turning very easily to a smirk as he curls the fingers of one hand tightly around Zabini’s neck. Harry thinks what he hears could be Zabini’s memory of his own heartbeat echoing in his ears, but it takes him a second to realize it’s just his own.

“Take me, you bastard,” Malfoy says, and then Harry’s back in the Hall of Memory, resting his head back against the cool marble wall of the booth, his shirt sticking to his back. 

***

It’s two in the morning, and Draco is sitting in Harry Potter’s living room, kneeling into his Floo. 

He’s pissed off, but also a little confused. The only thing he’d ever admit to liking about Potter was that he’d look Draco in the eye when they bickered. And his comebacks were lame, but that was to be expected. 

That day, however, once Draco had finished Susan’s duties for the day (and the following Monday, too), and when Potter had decided it was time for them to return back to his hovel of a home (Draco’s never been to the Weasleys’, but from the little he knows about Molly Weasley, he’s certain it’s cleaner than this), he’d approached him almost coldly. He hadn’t met Draco’s eyes, he’d hardly said a word, not even to complain about the self-alphabetizing charm on his filing cabinet. He’d just walked with Draco to the Apparition point and then held out his arm. And Draco could’ve tried to get a rise out of him, and he would’ve succeeded, no doubt, but his favorite way to piss off Potter was to effortlessly piss off Potter. He wouldn’t expend unnecessary energy to do so. Not anymore, at least.

And it isn’t weird to have a favorite way to piss off Potter.

“I think you’re overreacting, love,” says Pansy, who’s filing her nails and wearing a black lingerie bondage-look bodysuit. Draco thinks he hears snoring from somewhere in her flat, and Pansy lives alone. “Merlin forbid he’s, what, _actually_ matured these past few years? And he knows you supposedly want nothing to do with him, so he’s trying to want nothing to do with you.”

Draco frowns. _Supposedly?_   But. Anyway. “Perhaps. But living with the Savior is more bloody boring than you’d think.”

Pansy, much to his surprise, lets out a bemused chuckle. “And how would you know? From what you’ve told me, you never leave that room of yours.”

“You’re making me sound like some pathetic shut-in. I’ve just got work to do.”

“Right. Actually, that reminds me. Paloma and Blaise sent their invites _ages_ ago, as you know, but I’ve yet to receive anything from you about your marriage to your job, Draco. Not even a ‘save the date.’ It’s rude. You know I like to plan my outfits at least seven months in advance.”

Draco’s nostrils flare but he smiles ruefully a moment later. “Just keeping myself busy, as a certain someone once advised me to.”

Pansy sighs. She knows she’s that ‘someone.’ “Stop feeling sorry for yourself, Draco. Self-pity doesn’t look good on you —“

“Bloody hell, Pans. The man I love’s getting married to a bumbling, busty ditz, the wedding of whom I somehow ended up organizing, and my idiot of a father fucking escaped from prison, and roped my mother in on it, somehow forgetting to include their only son in the scheme. You’d think that if they were intent on soiling the family name a second time — third time? Circe, I can’t keep count — they’d take me with them, rather than leave me behind to deal with its crumbling remains. Or perhaps Mother was the mastermind, though she’s been off her rocker more often than not lately, which makes me doubt her ability to craft a plan careful enough —“

“Shut your bitchy, little mouth, Draco. I know you adore Paloma. And I’d have thought you’d come to expect the worst from your parents by now. Your life’s pretty shit, yeah? Doesn’t mean you have to wallow. I don’t like being around you while you wallow. And I know you reserve your wallowing exclusively for when you chat with me, because you’re a ray of sunshine at the Office. Clem seems particularly fond of you. He mentioned it to me last night.”

Draco’s brows draw together. “Who the bloody fuck is Clem?” he spits.

Pansy groans, and collapses dramatically against the floor in front of her fireplace, her nail file dropping to the floor. She’s motionless and silent for a good thirty seconds, and then Draco finally speaks up.

“Not that you don’t look amazing, but I’m getting a bit too much of an eyeful of lacy fanny right now.”

She sighs, hoists herself up so she’s propped up by her hands, cheek against her shoulder. “I don’t need you to tell me how good I look, Draco. I just need you to listen to me when I speak to you, and not just tune me out whenever we’re not talking about Blaise. Clem. Clem Creasey. He’s Potter’s partner.”

“Partner? Does he know about Potter’s mystery brunette from Magical Education?”

“Who — what? Danica? No, Draco. His _Auror_ partner.”                                                                                                                          

Draco twists his fingers together in his lap. It’s possible he recalls Pansy mentioning a burgeoning friendship with another Auror, possibly named Clem. “Right. Sorry.” He clears his throat, looks warily at Pansy. “Last night? Is he the one I can hear snoring back there? Are you fucking Potter’s Auror partner? I thought you had a fat, flaming crush on Weasley.”

Pansy looks bushwhacked by the question, but her face hardens quickly. “Don’t change the subject. You know, I think you could learn a thing or two from Potter. He’s a top-notch Auror, Clem says, but thanks to the underhanded snooping of _Witch Weekly_ and the _Prophet_ , we know he gets around. _I_ think this unusual arrangement could prove to be beneficial. Stop pouting.”

Draco’s most certainly not pouting, but he does retract his lower lip slightly. Just in case.

“Alright. I’m going to bed. Talk again soon, love, just at a normal time of day, and when you’re ready to do something other than whinge. You can always go back to your Mind Healer if you really can’t shut up. You’ll be at the Office tomorrow, won’t you? Bring me a coffee and I’ll forget you ever implied that I like Ron Weasley. Good night, Draco! I love you!” Pansy hops up, leaves her nail file there on the floor, probably because she knows it’d irk him, and walks into the darkness of her flat. Draco thinks she derives some sort of sick pleasure out of flaunting her body like that and knowing Draco won’t bat an eye.

He withdraws from Potter’s fireplace, and finds with a brief survey of the room that he’s still alone. He’d better be, as he’d posted Iggy on lookout outside of Potter’s door, and Tilly at the entrance to the living room. As he tiptoes back up the stairs, though, the now-familiar and infernal sound of Potter’s snoring pierces through his door. A cleverly-adapted Silencing charm on the walls of the guest room luckily prevent it from disturbing his work. Draco gives Iggy a thumbs up to let him know he’s off the hook, and then shuts himself into the neighboring room.

It’s been completely transformed since Draco’s first night. The air isn’t stuffy, the surfaces aren’t dusty, and those are only minor changes. How long has it been since his arrival? Three nights? Four? He could probably count on his fingers how many hours he’s slept over the past several days. It’s not his own fault, though. Potter has him doing busywork kissing the feet of Magical Law Enforcement during the day, and he could complain, but to whom? Nobody would take his side. Draco doesn’t mind it much, either, though it does impede upon his actual work, which must wait until the night to be attended to.

It’d started about four years back, when Draco and his mother were in the midst of their two-year house arrest. It’d been a matter of chance as well as extreme cleverness on Draco’s part. To keep up with the outside world while under lock and key, his mother had owl-order subscriptions to numerous Wizarding newspapers and publications. At some point she’d even added _The Quibbler_ to their ranks. But they also received the local Muggle post, tossed to the ground outside their looming gates by the postman. Over breakfast with his mother, refusing to crack open _The Quibbler_ and read about the reemergence of the thought-to-be-extinct Crumple-Horned Snorkack, Draco would occasionally leaf through the Wiltshire Times. In the Real Estate section, a  charming, gray stone home located near Bradford on Avon caught his eye. He wasn’t too confident when it came to mentally converting from Muggle currency, but it looked to be selling for dirt-cheap. Sure enough, by the following week’s paper, the listing was gone.

Three months later, the same house appeared again in the _Wiltshire Times_ , and also in the _Wiltshire Gazette_ , once again for much below its value, in Draco’s opinion. He suspected the Muggles had treated it poorly, and they’d let mold fester in the cellar, or something, but it was sold again by the following week. The home appeared again five months later, was snatched up soon after, and then again, just as their house arrest came to its completion at the end of two very dull years.

The Ministry wards had been lifted, and Narcissa, already tilting slightly to the loony side, had suggested they throw a party to celebrate. Draco, on the other hand, had felt more like he’d just graduated Crup kindergarten, already forgotten how to Sit and Heal, and finally been let out of his crate to piss outside. He’d shot down his mother’s suggestion of a party, too, knowing she’d only be disappointed when her invitations would be scorned by the Pure-Blood ladies of her once-inner circle who had renounced anything and everyone to do with Voldemort post-war after remaining decidedly neutral, rich, and unbothered while the fate of the Wizarding World rested in a mere few hands.

Post-war reparations had claimed their holiday cottage in the South of France and a good portion of their vault in Gringotts. They would have been just fine living off the remainder of it for a strong five years or so, too, had Narcissa not found retail therapy so relieving and had Draco had the heart to tell her to stop. He was no longer trapped within the walls of the Manor, though, with only his beloved but slightly mad mother and elves and the occasional Blaise or Pansy to keep him company. He remembers the feeling, clear as day, of walking out into the yard, the sun through the clouds somehow brighter though the Ministry wards had been invisible, breathing in the air, and then Apparating to Bradford on Avon. In hindsight, he should’ve practiced within the home, but for his first Apparition in two years, a shallow Splinch to his shoulder wasn’t that bad. He’d been wearing black, so the bleeding hadn’t been noticeable until the Muggle realtor had pointed it out an hour later.

He’d gone to see the home, the one of gray stone on a charming street where residents kept fresh flowers in their window boxes. He’d made friendly conversation with the realtor, struggling to recall what it was that Muggles his age did, though her leading questions had decided for him that yes, indeed, he was a recent graduate of uni (what?) and was looking for a first home for him and his fiancée, whose name was Daisy, because there had been fucking daisies in the window box. 

“That’s lovely,” the Muggle had said to him, clutching her clipboard to her green-cardigan-covered chest as they stood on the front walk. “And this is a lovely home. A bit rough around the edges, some work to do, but you’re young! And… strong.” Her eyes had flickered over Draco’s wiry frame, but her smile had remained warm. “And it has brilliant potential! It just needs a pair of loyal, devoted owners.” Draco could fill in the blanks between her words — _it just keeps coming back on the market and I just need to get rid of the sodding thing for good_. 

He’d followed her inside and sensed it immediately. Magic. It was impossible not to, especially when outside, the streets were so ordinary, the people so ordinary, their ugly dogs, barking hatefully at Draco, so ordinary. Draco’s lips twisted up into a smirk, and he had a hard time hiding how pleased he was, because he’d been fucking right. The oblivious realtor grew more jubilant at the sight of it. It was a magical home continuously in the hands of non-magical people. Draco had patted the wall consolingly as they’d made their walkthrough.

The door to the kitchen had slammed right into the realtor’s face — “oh, just a bit drafty,” she’d muttered — and she’d been taken aback when Draco had turned the faucet on and water had actually come out. A moment later, as Draco was peering out the window and into the quaint patch of grass that was the yard, he’d watched from the corner of his eye as she tested the faucet herself. Nothing. It was too good. He could only imagine the kind of subtle hell the house could raise for its revolving door of Muggle tenants.

It had been just as they were coming down the stairs from the second floor, as Draco watched the very bottom step drop an inch and cause the realtor to stumble a bit on her kitten heels, that Draco had said, “I’ll take it.”

His purchase had drained a third of what remained in their vault. Narcissa had been too busy sorting through her new antique acquisitions to ask Draco where he was disappearing everyday. The Bradford on Avon-house was kind to him. It sealed its windows and doors tight when the temperatures dropped in the evenings, and it cracked them open to catch the wind when the sunlight streamed directly in and threatened to turn the rooms into incubators. Wand in hand, he went from room to room, mending the existing furniture and cleaning the nooks and crannies, and if he bought a few expensive, Scandinavian statement pieces — a turquoise lacquer patio set and a massive, white sheeps fur divan — with their dwindling wealth, it was only to accent the home, and it loved him for it. He’d get his money’s worth eventually, when he put the home on the Wizarding market and bought space for his listing in the _Daily_ and the _Sunday Prophet_. He’d taken a risk by not using an alias, but after the first, well-to-do, little family had viewed the home and fallen in love, his credibility had been sealed. And he’d made double what he’d spent.

And thus, Draco Malfoy had started a business capitalizing on the pure, sweet ignorance of Muggles living in the wrong places at the wrong times. While they are oblivious, they’re also incredibly nosy and greedy, and Draco finds it completely feasible that Muggles may come upon magical homes, abandoned during the war, or deserted in the passing of their elderly owners, view them for their rustic charm, and seek to take them for their own. After the very first, he’d started to hoard nearby Muggle property listings by the tens and hundreds, slowly expanding the circumference of his business. All he had to watch for were patterns in the reappearances of certain homes on the Muggle market, and he was nearly always correct. In particular, one of his more recent procurements, the beautiful mansion in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, the to-be wedding venue of Blaise Zabini and Paloma Bexley-Zabini, had been the result of his own inquisition into the property after a very wealthy Muggle bachelor had allegedly thrown himself from the balcony of the master bedroom on the topmost floor. Draco had done a spot of research, and it turned out to have belonged, decades ago, to a bachelor the same age, kin to the Shafiq family of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, who’d committed suicide in the same way on the same date. Draco hypothesizes the home had been letting go of longstanding grief, much to that unlucky Muggle’s misfortune.

Pansy told him what Draco was doing was called house-‘flipping.’ He thinks that sounds awfully tacky, and that it’s even tackier that Muggles watch shows about it on their telly picture boxes. He often feels it’s somewhat of a heroic act, releasing the poor homes from their vicious cycle of uninformed Muggle dwellers. The fact that his critical eye for aesthetics doesn’t go unnoticed by his clients is nice, too. Sure, the occasional asshat will request a viewing, show up, spit in his face and call him Death Eater scum. Draco remains unbothered. The Malfoys, or, rather, _he_ , is rolling in galleons once again, and his mother can continue to neurotically shop without a worry for their livelihoods. _Could_ continue, before she'd dropped off the face of the Earth.

It’s an almost entirely superficial job. He loves it.

Draco sinks down into the chair in Potter’s guest room, and it creaks under his weight. He’ll have to tell Iggy in the morning that it needs replacing. Perhaps something legless — and Finnish. The Finnish wizards are working wonders with modern furniture. He rests his elbows against the desk, props his chin up in his hands, and stares, with a hollow sigh, at the blueprint for the Amersham mansion. He has a few changes to make, some rooms to extend, in anticipation of the Bexley-Zabini wedding. Draco has too much pride to allow his best mate — the love of his life — and the love of his best mate’s life to have a wedding anything short of picture perfect. He drops his forehead to the desk with thud, cursing himself for mentally employing the melodramatic moniker, _love of one’s life_ , before he lifts it swiftly enough to make his head spin, fearing the ink smudged onto his forehead. His fingers come back clean when he touches his skin, but then the sound of a muffled snore reminds Draco of his less-than-ideal circumstances. 

“Fucking Potter,” he says to the empty room, because he enjoys hearing his own voice in that particular regard, and directs his wand at the wall to renew the Silencing Charm.


	6. Chapter 6

It’s Saturday morning, around ten o’clock, and Harry is clad only in loose, flannel pyjama pants, sipping on the coffee Kreacher has just fixed him as he sits at the long kitchen table. He loves these moments — it’s nearly sunny outside, and it’s so peaceful within the walls of Grimmauld Place that Harry almost forgets that Draco Malfoy is upstairs behind a door. That’s a lie, though. He’s lying to himself. Malfoy’s house-elves are just a couple feet away from him, hard-boiling eggs and baking fucking croissants. Harry’s done a good amount of baking in his life, but Aunt Petunia never urged him to pick up croissant-making as a habit, so he can only assume it’s close to impossible.

Plus, he thinks he’s still feeling the aftershock of seeing Malfoy in a dressing gown, untouchable by him and even by Blaise Zabini. It’s revolting — revolting how attractive Malfoy is, how much of an arse he is, how nice of an arse he must have. Bollocks. Harry’s had plenty of opportunities to go insane in his short but eventful life. He’ll probably just have to start thinking about his life in terms of Zabini’s memories: pre- and post-Zabini. Once the Wizarding community gets a better grasp on the Internet, being a historical figure and notable celebrity, they’ll write him up a Wikipedia-style biography, and the post-Zabini period will be described as his descent from on-track-to-being-the-youngest-Deputy-Head-Auror-ever to spiralling-into-a-horny-pit-of-Malfoy-centric-madness.

His somewhat-pleasant Saturday morning takes a quick turn for the worse when Robards’ hawk Patronus swoops into his line of sight, and he gives a shout of surprise, splashing hot coffee onto his bare chest and his crotch. He hisses in pain, swiftly setting the mug down as one of Malfoy’s elves hurries over with a cold, damp washcloth that she presses into Harry’s hands. Harry presses it to his crotch as the hawk opens its beak.

“New evidence recovered at the Manor. Need you in right now. Bring Malfoy junior with you,” comes Robards’ voice. There’s a pause. “And clean yourself up, Potter.”

Harry stares in disbelief as the hawk dematerializes, and he gives himself whiplash being stupid and checking to see if Robards or one of his cronies is spying through Harry’s windows. Malfoy chooses that moment to shove open the swinging kitchen door, wearing a flawlessly tailored black blazer and trousers, paired with a black turtleneck. At ten on a Saturday morning. Annoyance pinches his nose as he scrutinizes Harry’s sorry state. He’s been too busy cooling off his crotch to even wipe at the coffee dripping down his chest, beading in his chest hairs. He does that now.

“I heard a noise. And because I cared about my own wellbeing, doubting the competence of the Auror to which my care was entrusted, I came to see what in the hell had happened. Luckily, it’s just you playing with your food, Potter. I’m so relieved.” He brings his fingertips up to rub at his temples, as if the sight of Harry gives him a headache.

“First, it’s a hot beverage, not food. Second — you — you don’t know the whole story,” Harry grumbles as he rises up, which is a mistake, because there’s an impressive brown splotch on the light blue tartan of his bottoms. Right over his dick. Malfoy’s standing by his elves now, biting into a hot, golden croissant, looking all too appreciative of the blackmail material Harry’s giving to him for free. “Third, we —“

“You’ve got a wee stain there, Potter,” Malfoy interrupts, brushing croissant crumbs from his lower lip. He smiles like the cat that got the cream.

“Really? Didn’t notice.” Harry sets the washcloth and the half-full mug haphazardly into the sink. There go his hopes of being properly caffeinated at the time of a major development in the Malfoy case. He silently bids goodbye to his sweet companion, Coffea arabica. “Anyway, third, they’ve found something at your house. Something important. We need to go. Now.”

Malfoy’s smile disappears and his gray eyes run cold. “What? To the Ministry? Right now?”

“Yes! I mean — no! Give me three minutes.” Harry, feeling strangely naked compared to Malfoy’s at least three layers, folds his arms over his chest, only to have his skin met with soggy chest hair. “Stay here. Three minutes. I have to change.” He eyes Malfoy warily, then strides past him out of the kitchen.

Malfoy’s “why? You don’t look any worse than usual,” follows him through the door and down the hall.

***

Malfoy is in full silence the whole of their journey to the Ministry. The Atrium is oddly empty, and there’s no one in the lifts as they climb the levels to the Auror Headquarters.

Clem Creasey is the first person they see when the doors to the lift open on Level Two. “Morning, Potter. Blondie.” He smiles slowly, and Harry would think his gaze was patronizing if it was fixed on himself. But his eyes are on Malfoy. Harry strides forward, and Creasey follows, two steps behind him but in step with Malfoy. “You’re in a spot of trouble, aren’t you?” he mutters tauntingly.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Malfoy says stiffly, and when Harry glances back over his shoulder at them, Malfoy shifts from glaring at Creasey to glaring at him. He looks away quickly. It pisses Harry off a bit that right then, Creasey knows more than he does, and Creasey probably got there a good twenty minutes earlier than he did. But Creasey also doesn’t have memories of Malfoy swirling around in his head, and probably didn’t pull a stupid stunt with a coffee cup that morning. His conscience is resting easier than Harry’s.

As they reach the cubicles, Robards wordlessly hounds Harry into a meeting room, and Harry watches him gesture vaguely to Creasey before he shuts the door behind them. He doesn’t know who he feels more sorry for — that Malfoy was left alone with Creasey, or that Creasey was left alone with Malfoy. Harry doesn’t think he’s ever felt sorry for Creasey a day in his life, though, so perhaps the decision is easier than he believes.

Michael Corner, Anthony Goldstein, a few other Aurors, and Robards’ minions are already there, as well as some witch Harry doesn’t recognize by face, but by her stark, white robes, she looks to be from the Magical Evidence Analysis Department.

“Wotcher, Harry,” Corner says, and Harry lifts his hand to wave, but the look Robards shoots them has him working his hand into his hair instead to give his head a useless scratch.

The witch from MEAD is Levitating a piece of parchment about an inch from the surface of the table. They’re all standing around the table, as opposed to sitting in any of the numerous chairs. Robards sighs, places his hands on his hips. “Anybody care to catch Potter up?”

The room is silent, and Harry bites the inside of his lip sheepishly. Then, finally, the witch speaks up.

“It’s a map, is what it is. We’ve had custody of it for a few days now, but all we thought it to be was just a blank piece of parchment,” she explains, eyeing the folded parchment warily. “It was clearly magical, but no magic could get it to reveal its secrets until, in conversation, we said…” She trails off, and clears her throat. Harry looks at her quizzically. “Lucius Malfoy,” she enunciates, pressing the tip of her wand to the parchment, and it unfolds, beginning to bloom with dark ink. Distinct walls, chambers, and corridors appear. It’s rather striking, really, in its resemblance to the Marauder’s Map. But chambers are each filled with lone dots — labeled Antonin Dolohov, Walden Macnair, to name a few — while the halls are manned by names they work with everyday in the Auror Headquarters. It’s a map of the tenth level of Azkaban. Harry steps forward, and the witch seems to understand, and she uses her wand to carefully flip through the pages, one for every floor. “It uses a rather comprehensive Homonculous Charm, and only reveals itself given… the password. From what we have on file from his most recent visit, though, the magical signature of its creator does not match that of Draco Malfoy.”

It’s a lot to swallow at once. Harry rubs his palm over his stubbled jaw, nods slowly. “I’ve seen something similar once,” he says vaguely. Everybody’s watching him, he notices, so he clears his throat and does a brief scan of the room. “I’m hoping it’s rather obvious now, isn’t it? That whoever abetted in Lucius Malfoy’s breakout was most likely in possession of this map?”

Robards sighs and nods. “Yes. And it was found in Narcissa Malfoy’s bedroom.”

“How could she be so careless as to leave something like this behind?” Goldstein mutters.

“Well. She, or whoever was helping them, accomplished what they’d wanted to. Get Lucius out. Don’t suppose they had much need for it after the fact,” says Harry.

There’s a silence, and then Robards puts his hands on the table, nodding at the witch from MEAD. “I’ve got Creasey questioning Malfoy right now. Go take it to them, see if he recognizes it.”

“Malfoy’s got an alibi,” Harry splutters despite himself. “He — He’s got an alibi for the night of the breakout.”

Robards arches an eyebrow at him. “I know that, Potter, thanks to the paperwork in his file that you’ve actually managed to complete for once. It’s just protocol. And it’s still possible he knows something more about this than we do.” He sounds like he’s stating the obvious, just for Harry’s benefit. He’s a bit slow this morning, is all. Robards stands up straight, points his thumb toward the door, and the witch, Levitating the map, exits, followed by the rest of the Aurors. Corner claps Harry on the shoulder in passing. Harry is left alone with Robards and his cronies, flanking him in the same way Crabbe and Goyle had always stood behind Malfoy in school. They’re much less threatening, though, without Goyle’s broad shoulders and Crabbe’s fat fists.

“You’ve been keeping a close eye on Malfoy, then?” Robards asks distractedly, his eyes still on the patch of the table where the map had floated moments before.

“Yes, sir.” Harry rocks back and forth from his heels to the balls of his feet. “He… keeps to himself.” Or does he? Harry realizes he’s got no idea what Malfoy does in that room.

“I thought this would’ve been over by now, Potter. And I’m sorry about it. But you do realize how important this all is, don’t you? That I’m entrusting him to you because I believe you’re the man for the job?”

Harry coughs, tugging at the hair on the back of his neck. He really, really wishes he wasn’t the man. “Yes, sir.”

“Good. Well. As it seems his stay under your supervision will be indefinite — we’ll have to do another round of searches in the Manor, see if every fucking piece of lint is hiding a Homonculous Charm inside it somewhere — I’m going to need you to focus on that. Him. Keep your distance, don’t breach his privacy, we don’t want him filing a restraining order on you, or something of the like, but go where he goes, if you know what I mean. He can’t be our prisoner, because Merlin knows how long this case will be open. But you’re his Auror bodyguard for now, you hear me, Potter? I still want you and him coming in — he’s doing a fine job in Susan’s shoes, don’t you think? — and I need your presence and your opinions while you’re in the Office. But your fieldwork. Your fieldwork is Malfoy. Got it?”

Harry bites down on the tip of his tongue. He knows there’s no point in protesting. And who knows? It might not be as riveting as actively chasing Dark wizards out of an abandoned warehouse in Blackpool, but he thinks there’s a good chance he’ll get to block a few Unforgivables the longer Malfoy stays with him. Bad joke? Too soon? He’ll keep it to himself. “Yes, sir. Absolutely, sir. Malfoy. Yes. Right.”

Robards nods absentmindedly, and then his eyes dart to Harry. “Alright, Potter. Go. Enjoy your weekend. Not too much, please. I need you vigilant.” His eyes bore right into Harry, as if he knows he spilled coffee on his cock that morning at the sight of a Patronus. Harry smiles meekly and hurries right out. 

***

Malfoy’s sitting behind Susan’s desk when Harry finds him. Creasey is there, too, sitting on the edge of the desk, leaning into his right arm so he’s effectively got Malfoy framed on all four sides by the two halves of his body and the cubicle — two cubicle walls on two sides, and his legs and his torso as the other two. Malfoy’s fingers are laced together in his lap, his legs crossed as he leans back in the chair. He’s not scowling like he was when Harry left him, though.

“I don’t know of anyone whom desperation flatters,” Malfoy murmurs, his smile wry.

“‘Desperate’? I wouldn’t say desperate. I think ‘dedicated’ is more fitting,” responds Creasey, tapping the toe of his big foot against one of the wheels on Malfoy’s chair. “You talk so funny. Anyone ever tell you that?”

“Are you really this daft? How long did you say you’d lived here? This is how we speak in England. We’re in London at this very moment. Does that ring any bells for you? You’re not in Kansas anymore, _buster_.”

Creasey scoffs out a laugh. “I never lived in Kansas, blondie. It was New York. And I know what a fucking British accent is. You, specifically, I mean. The way you talk.”

“What about it?”

“It’s funny.”

“It is _not_. You’re not laughing. Neither is anyone else. Nobody laughs at me when I speak. Your claim is unsound.”

It takes Harry several moments of disoriented staring to realize that Creasey is unabashedly flirting with Malfoy. And Malfoy is flirting back. He tugs at the collar of his shirt and marches up to Susan’s cubicle, folding his arms over the wall and looking between the two of them without shame for his interruption. “Ready to go, Malfoy?”

Malfoy gives him an odd frown, but he arises from the chair, tugs on the end of his blazer to smooth out the wrinkles. Creasey’s eyes canvas Malfoy’s body from head to toe and back up as he does. “Apologies. My nanny’s calling my name,” he mutters to Creasey, edging out of the cubicle past him. “See you later, Clemence.” 

There’s a second when Harry honestly believes he’ll be able to hold it in, but then he snorts loudly, cutting short Creasey’s reply of “bye, blondie.” Both Malfoy and Creasey turn in his direction, though Malfoy gives him a dirty look and Creasey just appears confused.

“Sorry,” Harry breathes, not at all sorry, wiping his palms absently against his trousers. Malfoy and Creasey are both rather tall, but Harry doesn’t feel any shorter looking up at them. “Right. On we go, Malfoy.”

Malfoy says nothing, probably pretends that Harry’s voice was the wind somehow penetrating the underground Auror Headquarters, perhaps coming through the bewitched windows, and swivels on his heel to head toward the lifts.

It’s not until they’re alone in the corridor together that Malfoy chances a look in Harry’s direction. “What the hell was that about, Potter?”

“What? The meeting? I thought they showed you. They found a map —“

“Not the map, you fuckwit. Of course I know all about that now. I meant _that_. In front of Clemence.”

Harry chuckles helplessly again. Good grief. How has he been Clem Creasey’s partner for so long and not known that ‘Clem’ was a mere nickname? He doesn’t think he’ll ever call him just Creasey again. “That!” Malfoy asserts quickly.

“Sorry. It’s just — Clemence? What an unfortunate name. Took me by surprise.” 

Malfoy’s lips part as if to make a snarky retort, but he hesitates and looks away from Harry, face blank. “Really mature, Potter. Not all of us have commoner names.”

Harry finds the smile fading from his face. He’d just wanted to have a bit of a laugh. And now Malfoy’s got him feeling guilty about it? Strange.

“Guess I forgot you need a name like _Blaise Zabini_ or _Clemence_ to get in Draco Malfoy’s trousers,” Harry murmurs offhandedly as they step into the lift. He feels the cold hawthorn wood of Malfoy’s wand dig into his jugular as the grates shut on them, feels it dig in harder as he swallows and lifts his hands up in surrender.

“What did you just say?” Malfoy hisses, and he’s standing close. Harry doesn’t think he’s ever dueled in a lift before, unless that time with Slytherin’s locket and fending off the Dementors while they fled the courtrooms counts. It wouldn’t be ideal to die at Malfoy’s hands, though, when he’d just promised Robards he’d keep a close eye on him.

“Nothing,” Harry says, staring into Malfoy’s frigid eyes, unafraid. But he’s also not keen on starting a petty argument. The pressure of Malfoy’s wand disappears, and he takes a step back to leave space between him and Harry. He doesn’t speak for a moment, just continues to wordlessly assess Harry. He becomes all too conscious of how messy his hair probably is, and of how close he’d come to breaking his Memory Trustee contract. How else could he have known about Malfoy and Zabini?

Malfoy still looks pissed off, but as the lifts open to the empty Atrium, he walks out ahead of Harry, his neat shoes clicking against the marble floors and echoing off the distant walls. “Jealous, Potter?” he says eventually. 

Then it’s Harry’s turn to say, “what?” as he stalks out after Malfoy. “What are you —? No. No. And Creasey — _Clemence_ — is a sleazebag, anyway. You shouldn’t want anything to do with him.”

Malfoy’s lips quirk up at the corners as Harry watches his profile. “Sweet of you to look out for me, Potter. Anyway. I need to take a short trip out to Buckinghamshire today, and based on what they’ve told me, you’ll need to accompany me.”

Harry wants to protest the insinuation that he was ‘looking out’ for Malfoy in any way, but he’s slightly distracted by Malfoy’s request. Or — not request. Demand. “O-okay?”

“Perfect. We have to be there in ten minutes.” He moves toward the nearest fireplace. “Just listen closely —“

“We’d better go together,” Harry insists, stepping up to Malfoy’s side. Malfoy’s nostrils flare and he doesn’t look at him, just grasps a handful of Floo powder and tosses it into the fire. He grasps Harry’s upper arm to drag him into the flames, and Harry winces at his iron grasp, which only has Malfoy narrowing his eyes as if to say, ‘ _really?_ ’

“Shafiq Manor, Amersham,” states Malfoy, holding Harry’s gaze.

*** 

Harry only realizes as he’s stumbling out of an immense fireplace into a high-ceilinged parlour, gemstones in a gargantuan chandelier reflecting little balls of light onto the walls, that he should’ve probably asked Malfoy what the purpose of his ‘trip’ was. Business? He doesn’t even know what Malfoy does for a living, other than possibly plan weddings and claim to have his ‘feet in plenty of doors.’ Pleasure? He… he’s not sure what Malfoy does for pleasure these days, as it’s sure as hell not Blaise Zabini. Maybe Clem Creasey, starting today.

“Get up,” comes Malfoy’s voice from somewhere to his left. Harry wipes the soot from his glasses off on his jeans and scrambles to his feet. He places them back on his nose to find Malfoy already walking out of the room, talking to himself. Or so he believes, until the two house-elves whose names Harry still can’t recall appear in the doorway of the parlour. Malfoy brushes off his own shoulder, and a cloud of soot billows into the air. “Til, remind me that we have to bring people in to have all the fireplaces cleaned. I think we’ll only have guests use the ones in the two parlours, though, so they’ll have to be the spotless ones.” Malfoy’s hands move to his waist, and as Harry straightens his glasses, he’s fazed by the tightness of Malfoy’s blazer, how it nips him in at the waist. It reminds him of Danica, except Malfoy doesn’t have great tits. Harry thinks he might miss her a bit. Malfoy and his elves’ silence breaks his reverie, and he looks up to meet Malfoy’s eyes, that are now fixated on him, a haughty eyebrow raised. “Keep up, Potter,” he mutters, then heads out of the parlour, elves scurrying close behind.

“Where are we?” Harry asks, though he receives no response.

“Master Harry Potter, sir, you’s got some soot on your face,” says the elf with the lilac eyes, pointing with her skinny finger toward Harry’s forehead. With a snap of her fingers, there’s a pocket mirror in her hand, and she holds it out to Harry. He accepts it reluctantly, and peers into it to find that he’s indeed got a smudge of black across his head. He’s rubbing at it as Malfoy steps outside and hollers a distant greeting. Harry stops in the open doorway at first, just to take in the sight of the endless, rolling green lawns, a driveway of which the end looks to be past the horizon. Graham Blandy boxwoods line the length of the driveway like soldiers in perfect formation. Harry scratches at his jaw, entranced by the grandeur, while making his way across the grass to where Malfoy stands with Blaise Zabini and Paloma Bexley. With a broader view of the manor, it becomes clear to him. He recalls the pictures from Zabini’s memory.

When Harry appears at Malfoy’s side, a sardonic smile comes to Malfoy’s face. “Ah. Here he is. My trusty Auror guard.” He glances at Harry only to sigh dramatically and point his wand at Harry’s forehead. “ _Tergeo_ ,” he mutters, lips pursing before he focuses on the couple again. Paloma beams, and the only thing grounding her seems to be her hold on Zabini’s arm, because when she lets go, she launches herself at Harry, arms wrapping around his neck.

“Harry Potter! My, it’s been too bloody long. We really do need to catch up! You’re still an Auror, yeah? That’s just superb. Really, really superb,” she gushes, squeezing him tight and choking him with big, blonde hair everywhere before she draws back, hands still on Harry’s shoulders.

Harry sucks in a breath now that he can, and he catches Zabini’s eye, who happens to be smirking casually at him. Harry has a feeling why. “You, too, Paloma. You look — er, great,” he offers, trying for a smile. The last time Harry saw her was in eighth year, when her and her posse of friends couldn’t keep their eyes or hands off of him. “Congrats on the engagement.”

Paloma grins, and she removes her left hand from Harry’s shoulder to flash her engagement ring at him. “Oh, did Draco mention it? Or did you read it in the _Prophet_?” She bites her lower lip. “Thank you. Thanks a lot, Harry. Glad you could come along. Today’s the first time we’re seeing it in person, too. It’s a special day.”

Harry blinks, shoots a look at Malfoy. “I didn’t mean to intrude —“

“Potter just really wanted to come. He has a thing for crown molding. Gets him going,” Malfoy supplies. Harry frowns, because _what the hell is crown molding_ , but Paloma just giggles and squeezes Harry’s shoulder.

“Couldn’t agree more, Harry. By all means, you’re welcome here. Let’s go have a look, shall we?” She holds onto the crook of Harry’s arm even as she leans over to grab a quick kiss from Zabini, and then she properly links their arms. Harry finds himself looking to Malfoy for help, but Malfoy’s back is turned already, and him and Zabini are up ahead. Harry can’t help but notice the peculiar softness about Malfoy’s typically stern, gray eyes when he turns to look at Zabini, laugh about something Harry probably wouldn’t understand. Paloma is saying something he’s already missed, but then she follows Harry’s line of sight and sighs, her smile small but sweet. “They’re adorable, aren’t they? They’re both so lucky to have each other. I feel like Draco has really brought Blaise down to earth, knowing what he’s been through.” Harry looks at Paloma from the corner of his eyes, brows furrowed, but her expression seems genuine enough. He’s sure she knows about their past. She may act like a bimbo for reasons Harry doesn’t understand, but Luna had once told him that Bexley had been at the top of their class. She meets his eyes out of the blue and smiles wider, her teeth white and her cheeks rosy. “Enough about us, though. I want to hear all about you! Are you still chummy with Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley? Oh, I miss that lot, too!”

“Oh, yeah. Still chummy,” Harry confirms, cringing internally at how that word sounds rolling off his own tongue. “They’re great. They’re still together, actually.”

“Ah! Isn’t that lovely? Do you think they’d come if I sent them an invite to the wedding? I don’t want to be weird, but who doesn’t love a party? We’ve got too much room on our hands here, anyway. Several hectares, I think.” Her pink lips curl up at the corners. Harry agrees mindlessly, his gaze drifting over toward Zabini and Malfoy again. They chat, or, rather, Paloma chats _at_ him, as Malfoy leads them into the back gardens. They’re stunning, with elaborate landscaping, hedges and wildflowers circling the ideal spot for their wedding arbor, which will be weaved through and through with wildflowers as well — Malfoy’s words, not Harry’s.

“In a couple weeks, I’ll put some preservation charms on the flowers. They’ll still be lovely come May,” Malfoy tells them. Paloma looks on the verge of tears, and she lets go of Harry to scamper over to Blaise, choosing to dangle off his neck instead, her face against his chest.

“It’s magnificent, Draco,” says Paloma. Zabini looks at Harry right then, as if he can read his mind. Those had been Paloma’s exact words when Draco had handed her the wedding book on the night of March the twenty-first. Harry clears his throat, focuses on smiling at Paloma and blurring out Zabini from the edges of his vision. “Just magnificent.”

Malfoy shrugs smugly. “I know.” He gestures gracefully toward the several glass doors lining the back of the manor that the house-elves are busy propping open. “Cocktails will be served right through there once the ceremony is finished. Then we’ll proceed into the ballroom for the reception. It’s honestly fan-fucking-tastic in there. I’ve changed the ceiling a bit since you saw the pictures.”

Paloma gapes in excitement and then takes Zabini’s hand, playfully dragging him along toward the doors. He’s forced to break into a run to stay in step with her. This leaves Malfoy and Harry to saunter toward the manor behind them. The moment the two of them disappear from sight, a weariness settles into the contours of Malfoy’s face. Harry feels like he should say something, though Malfoy seems resolute on maintaining the silence between them, eyes fixed ahead. 

“Malfoy…”

“Don’t, Potter,” Malfoy grits. He says nothing, and then, “I’ve never taken you to be perceptive, so this is odd, to say the least, but just don’t.” He clears his throat, lifting his chin slightly. “Do you think it’s too Monet’s-Garden-at-Giverny? I don’t want it to be a cliché. But I also didn’t want it to be all rigid and formal, like the Jardin des Tuileries, or too ostentatious, like the fucking Villa d’Este. I was trying to go for an Exbury Gardens-look.”

Harry doesn’t respond for a moment, because he thinks the only word he understood in there was “Monet,” but he chuckles eventually and shakes his head. “It’s nice, Malfoy. But just let me say this, please. You’re wasting your time. And he’s not even worth it, I mean, come on. Zabini?”

Malfoy’s jaw clenches, and Harry thinks he might’ve said something wrong, or more than one something. Whatever it was, he struck a nerve. “If I wasn’t so sure you could reduce me to ashes with a Disarming Charm, I’d hex your balls off, and then your mouth, so you couldn’t scream,” Malfoy says calmly. “I suppose it’s part of your Savior complex, Potter, to think that you must be an expert on everything, including things you know absolute shite about.” He turns a patronizing smile on Harry. “Kindly shut the fuck up, and stick your nose up your mystery brunette’s arse.”

Harry frowns. “At least my mystery brunette likes me back.”

Malfoy’s eyes brighten with a sarcastic play at delight. “You’re really going to go there, aren’t you?” He laughs, linking his hands behind his back as he walks faster, a few steps ahead of Harry. “Fucking ridiculous. Sorry, Potter, I can’t hear you and your mystery brunette over the sound of your Auror partner sucking my prick.”

Harry chokes on air, or on the thought of Creasey on his knees for Malfoy, but he regains his poise swiftly. “I didn’t think you could stoop any lower than Zabini, but you have. Clem Cre — My bad, _Clemence_ Creasey. That’s talent, Malfoy,” he jeers. “I hate to break it to you, but he’s not a Pureblood.”

“Still can’t hear you, Potter!” Malfoy calls, but doesn’t turn around, gesticulating with his hands. “I’m too busy fulfilling my fucking secretary duties! I’m filing your shit for you, Potter! Your partner’s fucking me over your desk, Potter! Haven’t you heard? Pure bloodlines are so five years ago!” His voice is growing louder, angrier, and when he stops in his tracks and turns to face Harry, his face is tinged slightly pink. Harry’s is, too, but not for the same reason.

“Shut up, Malfoy,” he warns lowly, but then the fuzzy figure of Paloma appears in Harry’s peripheral vision, and he takes a step back, though he and Malfoy are already about five feet apart. 

“Everything alright out here?” she asks in a wobbly voice. Harry looks down at his feet, breathing heavily as guilt swells in his chest. Is he really doing this? Renewing his schoolyard rivalry with Malfoy when Robards merely assigned him to keep an eye out for him? “I love what you did with the ballroom, Draco. It’s beautiful,” she adds meekly, and Harry hears Malfoy force a chuckle. He tracks the movement of Malfoy’s shoes out of his line of sight as he traipses toward Paloma, and when he looks up, he’s kissing her on the cheek and nodding toward the indoors. He mutters something Harry can’t hear, likely an apology, and then follows her inside.

Harry takes a moment to cool down before he enters, as well.

The ballroom is unlike anything he’s ever seen before. He recalls how he felt the first time he’d walked into the Great Hall on his first evening at Hogwarts, when he’d had no idea what the limits of magic were, or if they’d even existed. Now he knows, to some degree, but this feeling still comes close. The ceiling of the large ballroom is enchanted to look like a faraway canopy of green trees, sunlight peeking through the foliage. The hall is interspersed with trees, as well, thick-trunked and smelling like the woods, and from their branches hang countless vines of white flowers. Zabini is silent, turning slowly around in a circle, and Paloma has tears dripping down her cheeks, and Harry doesn’t know if it’s because of their quarrel or because she’s just as entranced as Zabini.

Malfoy, on the other hand, has his arms crossed tightly over his chest as he leans into one of the trees. Harry approaches him with the intention of complimenting the ballroom as a proposal of some sort of truce, but Malfoy flicks his wand and hits Harry’s toe with a Stinging Jinx that has him crumpling abruptly to the floor. He refuses Paloma’s distressed offers of help.

*** 

After the spat at the Amersham mansion, Harry doesn’t see Malfoy for the remainder of the weekend. Sometimes, there’s pure silence from behind his door, and Harry’s afraid he might’ve Apparated to Merlin knows where — Romania, perhaps, or Siberia, or wherever Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy are hiding out underground. Those times, he can’t stop himself from knocking and calling out a hesitant “Malfoy? You in there?”, only to be acknowledged with a bitter “No, I’m not. Alert the authorities, will you, Potter? Let them know I’ve escaped on your watch. Oh, wait, you are the bloody authorities. Fuck off.”

Harry’s relieved for the other times, when he can clearly hear Malfoy chatting with his elves. Harry has yet to see what the guest bedroom looks like after Malfoy moved in; all he can safely assume is that Malfoy has yet to construct a kitchen of his own inside, because Harry often finds the elves — Iggy and Tilly, he’s learned — fixing Malfoy profuse cups of tea in Harry’s kitchen. Several times he’s also walked in on them having candlelit meals together at Harry’s kitchen table, which is one of the weirder things he’s seen house-elves do. They bake croissants for Malfoy and froth his milk for him, but they seem to be enthralled by the contents of Harry’s pantry, and feast on pickled onions and beetroot from Harry’s own stock. 

Harry wishes he was at a piss-up in Greece.

Come the following Monday morning, Malfoy’s ready before him, waiting at the foot of the stairs. He’s wearing a cobalt-blue, cashmere sweater and gray trousers, and, naturally, wrinkles his nose at the sight of Harry’s worn-in trainers. He says nothing, though, as Harry Apparates them to the Ministry.

Harry isn’t around much in the morning, because he still has several of Zabini’s memories left to view and catalogue, and in the afternoon, Robards has him round on the several groups working on the Lucius Malfoy case. There are no developments, just more false sightings, and no leads on the producer of the map of Azkaban. Later in the day, Harry struggles to find where Malfoy had stashed his Memory Logs, and eventually has to _accio_ them to avoid asking Malfoy himself and starting a scene in front of the whole office.

“I asked Clemence over for dinner tonight,” Malfoy says to him in the early evening as they’re making their way toward the lifts again.

“What?” Harry blurts. He glances at Malfoy’s profile, incredulous. “You invited Creasey? To _my_ house?” He blinks as the thought registers slowly. “For tonight?”

“I’m impressed, Potter, by your parroting abilities. The mark of actual intellect, however, is the capability of actually analyzing and understanding —“

“Shut up, Malfoy. You’re not even a houseguest. You’re a charge, _my_ charge. You don’t have privileges.”

Malfoy shoots him a distasteful look. “I’m not a prisoner, Potter. Do you know how easy it would’ve been for me to leave your house, get you in a shitload of trouble? And I didn’t. I haven’t. I’m an upstanding member of society, entrusted to your care because my own home is a fucking crime scene, and I’ve been subjected to living in your slovenly pigpen for the indefinite future. And you can’t allow me one guest?”

Harry opens his mouth to retort, but then they reach the lifts, and the grates open. 

“Harry!” shrieks Danica happily. She’s standing there halfway off the lift to keep it open for them, wearing a skin-tight maroon leather vest that’s unzipped halfway. Harry sometimes wonders if the uniform policies down in Magical Education are incredibly lax. Malfoy doesn’t bat an eye at her and steps right into the lift.

“Malfoy’s just invited Clem Creasey for dinner,” Harry mutters by way of greeting, but he kisses her on the cheek as a hello, too.

The lift closes up, and Danica looks from Harry to an unbothered Malfoy, before she laughs throatily. “The American?” She rubs her hand over his shoulder. Merlin, he’s missed human contact. It feels good. “Harry, he’s your partner. Maybe it’ll be nice! You know, babe, you’re not going to like everyone you meet, especially not at the Ministry —“

“You should join us,” Harry says abruptly. Malfoy’s lips purse into a thin line, Harry notes with a smirk. He meets Danica’s eyes. “Please? I’ve been meaning to cook for you, haven’t I? And you’ll make it bearable.”

Danica’s eyes light up, and she straightens her spine to stand at her full five feet and three inches. She tilts her head to the side as she wraps her arms around Harry’s bicep, and her eyes wander over to Malfoy. “Only if it’s alright with you, Draco.”

Malfoy is dumbfounded, as if he hadn’t expected to be asked for his opinion. “I — Of course,” he says instantly. “Of course it’s alright with me.” He tugs at the hem of his jumper, then links his arms behind his back as he settles his shoulders. “If you’re there, Potter can’t poison the food.”

Danica just laughs at this. “Perfect!” She reaches up, pokes Harry’s cheek. “No Draught of Living Death in my mash, please.” Malfoy smiles pleasantly at her words, which inexplicably frustrates Harry.

The lift finally opens to the Atrium, where Harry spots a familiar ginger head, but not before Malfoy spots him first. 

“Weasley! Hey, Weasley!” Malfoy bellows, speed-walking and shouldering past other Ministry workers on their way to the fireplaces. Ron turns, bewildered at the sight of Malfoy approaching him, even more so when Malfoy clasps a hand onto his shoulder. Harry makes eye contact with him right over Malfoy’s shoulder and sighs, lacing his fingers with Danica’s. “Weasley. So glad I’ve managed to catch you. You see, Potter’s hosting a dinner party tonight, _and_ he’s cooking. You should come. Bring Granger, won’t you? Else the collective IQ will be pitifully low. And the Weasele — Ginevra. Your sister. Potter’s ex. Bring her, too, if she’s around. It’ll be a grand old time.”

Harry reaches them only in time to hear Ron reluctantly say, “er, okay.” He looks at Harry, and then at Malfoy, who’s still holding onto Ron’s shoulder. Harry thinks Ron only starts to look pleased when he realizes how confused Harry is. “Thanks for the invite, mate. We’ll be there in an hour,” he says to Harry and pats his him on his shoulder, gives Malfoy a skeptical half-smile, before he’s inundated by the crowd of Ministry workers all seeking to Floo home.

“What did you do?” Harry sighs as his shoulders slump, watching Ron’s head disappear into the distance. He rolls his eyes to Malfoy.

“Bringing all your friends around, Potter. Helping you to be social. Did you think I hadn’t noticed that during my stay, you’ve been nothing but a pathetic hermit? The same way I refuse to let your ridiculous qualms about me as your charge stop me from living my life, I refuse to be the reason you’re a complete bore.” People swirl all around him, Danica, and Malfoy as they stand by the Fountain of Magical Brethren, on their way home or to the lifts for a night shift. As usual, Harry catches the eyes of some, and Malfoy the eyes of others. 

Harry just stares at Malfoy for a moment. “I don’t even know what to say to you,” he says. Right before his eyes, Danica and Malfoy exchange a look that’s gleeful on Danica’s end and amused on Malfoy’s. Everyone’s out to get him. Everyone. He wouldn’t be surprised if Malfoy managed to do some Dark shit with his Dark Mark and invite Voldy back from the dead to join them at the dinner table. He turns, tugging gently on Danica’s arm, and she has to jog to catch up with him. Unfortunately, Malfoy follows. 

*** 

Malfoy’s bedroom in the Manor. Harry knows it too well by now. If, for some reason he can’t fathom right then, he was to ever enter Malfoy’s bedroom, he’d blow his cover much too fast; sit on the bed where Blaise had ravished Malfoy, look at everything like he’s seen it twice before, because he has. 

This is the second time now.

Malfoy is fully clothed this time. Harry’s cock is thankful for it. The air is so thick with unspoken tension he can barely breathe. Malfoy looks to feel about the same, and Zabini looks moderately apologetic. He gazes at Malfoy, who is currently avoiding his eyes much the same way he’d avoided Harry’s eyes when he’d tried to broach the topic of Blaise Zabini at the Amersham mansion. He has a niggling feeling this might be the second of very few memories that won’t leave him a sweaty mess leaning over the Pensieve. 

“Since you graduated,” Malfoy mutters quietly to himself and pinches at his lower lip with his thumb in not-so-deep thought. Whatever he’s saying, he wants Zabini to hear it, too. “You’ve been seeing her since you graduated a year ago.” He chuckles, swings his legs where they dangle over the edge of his high bed. “Funny. Funny, that. You’ve been seeing me that long, too. Longer. Or maybe just as long? Perhaps you were seeing her while you were still at Hogwarts, too? Mm. I could see it. That’s romantic. Schoolyard sweethearts, were you? Last you told me, all the blondes with big tits were drooling over our Light Lord and Savior, Harry Potter.” 

Harry frowns at the embellishment to his label. But he continues to listen closely.

“She got over it,” Zabini mutters. “By spring term, she was over him.”

Malfoy smiles again, brows piquing with forced intrigue. “And all over you.” Zabini looks uncomfortable, and his silence is just an invitation for Malfoy to keep talking. “Right. That’s adorable, Blaise. Thanks for sharing your story.”

Zabini rolls his eyes. “Dray —“

“You’re telling me about her, but does she know about me? Have you told her about us?”

Zabini’s Adam’s apple bobs visibly, but his tone is even. “Not yet. I will, though. When it becomes relevant.”

Malfoy tilts his head back in a sharp laugh. “I should’ve guessed. She’s relevant right now, but I’m not. She’s important enough for me to know about, but I’m not important enough for her to know about.”

“I love her.”

Malfoy’s smile falters imperceptibly, but Harry sees it, and he knows Zabini must have seen it, too. It’s his memory, after all. “You’re nineteen, Blaise, what the actual fuck do you think you know about love?” he hisses, casting a side-eye at him. Malfoy’s fingers curl into the edge of the bed, and his tense shoulders rise only closer to his ears.

“More than you.” Zabini shrugs lackadaisically as he picks at his fingernails. “Thought I made it clear enough when we started fucking around that I wasn’t gay.”

Harry hears the scratch of nails against sheets as Malfoy stares glumly at the rug in front of the bed. “Don’t worry. You made it perfectly clear. ‘I’m not a poof, Draco, but I’ll ram you up the arse like it’s the best sex I’ve ever had.’”

Zabini scratches the back of his head and exhales a half-chuckle. “It was good,” he admits. “You were good.”

“I still am.”

“I know, Dray. I know. But I love her.” Zabini slides off his perch on the bed and he moves until he’s standing in front of Malfoy. Malfoy avoids his eyes, turns his head, but Zabini’s not seeking eye contact. He starts to unbutton Malfoy’s crisp, white shirt from his neck down.

Malfoy clears his throat. His eyes are red-rimmed, but he’s not crying, as far as Harry can tell. “As I’m feeling particularly infantile right now, I’ll just voice my thoughts aloud. If I had a cunt and two big fucking motorboat-able mammaries, would you love me, too? Like you _love_ that birdbrained cow? Or is there some deeply-rooted emotional connection between you two? Do you sit together and take turns staring at yourselves and each other in the mirror?” Zabini’s hands have made it to the very bottom of Malfoy’s shirt, and his fingers are gentle as he pushes the sleeves off Malfoy’s bony shoulders. The shirt sags around his wrists, where it then stays, because his fingers are like a Grindylow’s clenching the sheets. Then Zabini takes Malfoy’s face in firmly in one hand. Malfoy looks directly upward to avoid his gaze.

“Don’t call her that,” Zabini says. “You’d like her. She’s… different. I’ve never met anyone like her, who’s just… good to be around. She makes me a better person, Draco. She makes me act like a better person, at least.”

Malfoy snorts, twists his neck to rid himself of Zabini’s grip. “Since when have you cared about acting like a good fucking person? When did that become so important?” He finally looks down when Zabini’s fingers make a move on his trousers, deftly unbuttoning and unzipping them. Harry takes it back, the part about not being reduced to a sweaty, horny mess. Malfoy is gaunt and his eyes are sad, but Blaise’s dark hands look nice on his body. Harry’s known for some time that he’s also attracted to men, and he’s been linked to a few in his time in the limelight. But for the life of him, he can’t explain why it’s not Blaise Zabini’s broad shoulders and smoldering looks that draw him in. He can appreciate them. Oh, he can fucking appreciate them. But his eyes hone in on the way his hands canvas Malfoy’s pale thighs as he drags off his tailored, wool-blend trousers.

Zabini shrugs again and drops Malfoy’s trousers to the floor. He’s left only in tight, black briefs and black socks, and his shirt is on the floor now, too, because he’s straightened his back and folded his arms stubbornly over his chest. His eyes are bloodshot. “You’d be amazed at how good it feels, Dray, to spend time around a happy person,” he mutters. Zabini knees to the floor, and Malfoy obstinately tilts his head back, baring his throat, so he’s focused on the vaulted ceiling. If he was to look down, though, he would be able to watch Zabini peel his socks off his feet one by one. He cradles the delicate arch of Malfoy’s right foot, presses a kiss to the top of it. “You know I still adore you to bits, Draco. I’m not going anywhere. I mean — that’ll never happen again. Us. But I’ll still be around. Look on the bright side. Pansy’ll stop griping about how we always bum around without her.”

“I don’t believe she’d want to be involved in our bumming,” Malfoy says dryly.

“But now she can be. Because _us_ will never happen again.” Zabini kisses Malfoy’s kneecap, then stands up to tug his shirt over his head. Malfoy is still refusing to look his way, but when Zabini reaches to grasp at his chin again, Malfoy shoves him away with both hands and feet, his face pinched hatefully.

“What happened to _us_ not happening again?” he seethes. The light catches slightly off a glimmer around his eyes.

“Well, we’re obviously happening right now.”

Malfoy sneers and folds his legs at the knees. “That obvious, is it? Newsflash, Blaise, I won’t drop my knickers for you when you please and tell you how fit you are while you shag me in the corridor behind the Transfiguration classroom.”

Zabini laughs, much to Malfoy’s distaste. “You’d never sing my praises, Draco. That I know. Stop being so fucking petty.”

“Fuck you.”

“You want me.”

“Fuck you.” Malfoy’s voice trembles that time, but he looks in Zabini’s vague direction, then squeezes his eyes shut tightly. Zabini approaches him slowly, like he’s a frightened animal, and unfolds Malfoy’s legs carefully.

“If you want me to leave, I’ll go.”

“I said fuck you,” Malfoy whispers. Zabini is blocking him from Harry’s view, but Harry doesn’t think he should move, not when he sees Zabini drop Malfoy’s underwear to the floor, too.

“If you want me to stop, I’ll stop.”

Malfoy’s fingers curl around Zabini’s neck, framing his jawline and his ears, and he kisses him. It’s about two seconds before Zabini breaks it off and shakes his head silently. They stand there, and Harry holds his breath, until Malfoy chuckles derisively and scoots back, collapsing onto the bed, where he rolls over onto his stomach. He rubs at his eyes and then props his chin up in his hands, staring at Zabini. “You’re the worst person I’ve ever met and I hate you,” he says simply. The smile on his face and the dampness around his eyes tell Harry the exact opposite. It’s strange to see so much emotion. It’s like Malfoy is a wet rag, and Zabini is wringing him out achingly slow, and he’s dripping with feelings Harry and no one else ever get to see. Harry had seen it once, in the sixth floor boys’ bathroom in sixth year. He’s not feeling any impulses to _Sectumsempra_ this memory-Malfoy, though.

Zabini’s on the bed beside Malfoy. Malfoy takes one of Zabini’s hands in both of his own, squeezes it tight, and presses it to his mouth. It hurts to watch. Zabini thinks so, too, because he’s staring off into Harry’s corner of the room.

“You’re killing my hard-on, Dray.”

“You brutally murdered every boner I’ll ever have the moment you told me you’re in love with Paloma Bexley.” There’s a hint of a genuine smile on Malfoy’s face.


	7. Chapter 7

It’s been a hellish evening for Harry, and only an hour has passed.

Once he, Danica, and Malfoy had made it to Grimmauld Place, Malfoy had at least set Kreacher, Iggy, and Tilly to making the first floor slightly more presentable for Harry’s guests. Danica had suggested that they order in, or that she help with the meal preparations, just to make Harry’s life a tad easier, but Malfoy had insisted on seeing Harry cook. And Harry, being defensive in the moment but just stupid in hindsight, couldn’t crumble in the face of Malfoy’s challenge. His culinary skills were everything Aunt Petunia had ever needed them to be — which was quite a bit. Harry considers himself licensed to run a restaurant catered specifically to an extremely critical but very gluttonous audience (see Dudley and Vernon Dursley to request references).

That doesn’t help much, though, when he’s spent the past couple of years working seventy-five percent of the time, shagging around twenty percent, and ordering in Thai food the remaining five percent. He’s relying on a Muggle classic, spaghetti and homemade meatballs, but halfway through, he realizes his meatballs should most likely not just be globs of meat, as they’re crumbling before his eyes in the pan, and he has to emergency-firecall Molly Weasley to figure out that he needs eggs to bind them. Malfoy finds it all very entertaining. He sits on Harry’s kitchen counter, in the way in every way possible, sipping from a glass of wine that Danica has poured for him. He chats with Danica, too, and manages to charm her like he does with everyone else at the Auror Headquarters. Harry thinks it’s only this maddening because he’s wrists deep in a mixture of ground beef, eggs, and pancetta. 

It gets worse when Clem Creasey arrives. He’s been to Harry’s place once before, the day after Harry had met him for the very first time, when Harry had been fooled into thinking he could be a nice bloke and not a kiss-up wanker. Apparently Creasey and Danica share mutual friends, so as he steps into the kitchen with an “eyy, Potter!”, she trades him a tight hug for a glass of wine. Creasey, of course, sidles up to Malfoy, leaning up against the counter beside his perch and gazing at him as if his every insult to Harry is the word of God, or Will Smith, or Mariah Carey, or whoever it is that Americans worship.

Harry realizes he’s not boiling enough spaghetti, and Malfoy is telling him off for not making his pasta by hand, which even Iggy can do, when Hermione and Ron step into his kitchen, followed by… Ginny. And Luna. None of them pay mind to Harry while he’s buzzing about at the cooktop, instead exchanging greetings and hugs, though Ginny’s eyes do flicker in Harry’s direction. In the few years directly following the war, when they’d all returned to Hogwarts to get their NEWTs, and when Ginny had later been in development for the Holyhead Harpies and Harry in training for the Aurors, they’d tried. They’d tried rather hard, because they’d been through so much together that it had to have meant something, right? It hadn’t been enough, though, on either end, and though they’d agreed to remain friends, it wasn’t quite the same. Harry thinks Ron had been the most upset, that he wouldn’t be the best man at his best mate and sister’s wedding. Harry had been relieved.

Ginny and Luna are holding hands. Harry’s not sure if that’s a new development, or if he’s just as clueless as he always is. Last he’d heard, Luna had been in a polyamorous relationship that he thinks may have involved Millicent Bulstrode. Harry’s overheating pasta sauce chooses that moment to erupt and burn a patch of his arm. He hisses in pain and lowers the heat, and Malfoy, still on the counter beside Harry’s stove, tilts back his glass to swallow the last of his wine as he wordlessly Vanishes the offending sauce from Harry’s arm. As he sets down his glass on the counter beside him, and Creasey hurries to find a bottle from which to refill it, Malfoy administers a light cooling charm to the scorched patch on Harry’s arm. “Fuck’s sake, Potter,” he murmurs without meeting his eyes, accepts the second glass from Creasey, and tunes back into the conversation around the kitchen table as if Harry no longer exists.

“It’d sort of started back in fourth year, actually,” Hermione is saying, a sheepish smile on her face. Danica listens intently as she sets a dish in front of everyone seated at the table. She’s probably the one who asked, since everyone in the room but Malfoy and Creasey know about this story. It’s one of the things Harry likes best about her — that she’s genuine. Sure, semi-dating and hooking up with Harry Potter has its perks, but she tries to get to know his friends regardless.

“I remember it like it was yesterday. She comes in with a box of these badges, expecting me an’ Harry to wear them and spread her manifesto when we’ve got ‘SPIT’ in huge letters on our chests,” says Ron.

“SPEW, Ronald. S, P, E, W. Not _spit_. Clearly you don’t remember as well as you thought you did,” Hermione states hotly, then exhales a chuckle despite herself as she looks back to Danica. “SPEW. Society for the Promotion of Elvish Welfare. I was perfectly ready to become the leader of the movement for reform, but my secretary and treasurer weren’t quite on the same page as me.” She eyes Ron and Harry with a fond smile. 

“So she got a job in Magical Creatures and rebelled from the inside out!” Ron exclaims in excitement, unable to contain himself. Harry assumes that Ginny steps down hard on Ron’s foot, because then there’s a loud thump as Ron’s knee hits the underside of the table and everyone’s glasses tremble. The pain plays out on Ron’s face as he scrunches his eyes shut tight.

“Let her tell the story, twat,” says Ginny.

Hermione rubs a hand over Ron’s opposite shoulder. “Yes, well. That sums it up, really. I got a desk job in the Being Division at the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. It wasn’t difficult, given my NEWT scores.” She shrugs. “I worked there for several months, earning the trust of all the employees, showing them I was a hard worker, that sort of thing. When I felt I was ready, then I kind of… _engineered_ the schedules of the higher-ups in the Department so that they happened upon a meeting they didn’t know about, where I gave them what I could only call a much more sophisticated run-down of the goals I’d had for SPEW. Essentially, it was a complete overhaul of the, at the time, current legislation regarding house-elves, including the establishment of a house-elves’ union. It took some intense persuasion, but my arguments weren’t radical, really, in any sense. They were just moral. And I think they saw that, you know? Because they were all on board.”

“She Imperiused them,” Ron says knowingly.

Hermione fights back a smile and swats his shoulder, but otherwise ignores the interjection. “It was brilliant. The heads of the Goblin Liaison Office, the Office for House-Elf Relocation — all of them, they petitioned the Ministry, threatened to strike, or even quit, until their requests were acknowledged by the Minister. These weren’t exactly expendable wizards, either. And that’s how the Association for the Defense and Advocacy of Magical Creatures was born. I still think it’s rather unfortunate we’re officially affiliated with the Ministry, because it does hurt our credibility, but I do think it was better to start there than from scratch. I don’t think we’d have an Elvish Workers’ Union by now if we hadn’t had access to all of the information owned by the Ministry and had a cornerstone for establishing new legislation.” 

“That’s cool as shit,” Creasey says. He’s either had half the bottle, or is a wine-drunk lightweight, his hand grappling for a hold on Malfoy’s thigh. Malfoy doesn’t stop him, but doesn’t seem too pleased about the assault to his thigh. Or his unintelligible commentary.

Hermione smiles. Danica sits down across from her. “It’s… _ADAMC_ , then?”

“Adam, for short,” Ron supplies, leaning into his arms where they’re folded over the tabletop. “Adam, he’s… he’s like ‘Mione’s child. And her paramour, somehow, at the same time. When I officially started with the Aurors, I thought I was fuckin’ working all the time. But ‘Mione? She was always with Adam, doing things for Adam, having meetings for Adam.” Ron grins. “Still is. But we’ve come to an understanding. Somewhat.” Hermione wraps her arms around Ron’s shoulders, leaning into him. It makes Harry’s heart warm, even still, seeing his best friends together. He decides then that his pasta is probably overdone, and Malfoy will comment on it not being al-dente enough, but he doesn’t know the clever cooking spells to fix that.

“That’s so inspiring, Hermione,” Danica says in awe. “Makes me want to start a riot in Magical Education.”

Hermione sits up quickly. “Do you need ideas? I have plenty for educational reform.”

Hermione blushes when the room echoes with laughter, and Harry is close to pouring boiling water on himself when he does, too, but he manages to get the pasta safely into the colander. Once it’s drained, he places it back into the pot, and when Iggy and Tilly offer to serve the spaghetti — one carrying the pot, the other portioning — Harry practically falls to his knees thanking them.

“But, really. I was never expecting the success I got with Adam. I had plenty of help,” says Hermione, smiling at Tilly as she gives Hermione a helping of pasta. “In fact, Draco’s elves were some of the first members of our union.”

“Yeah?” Danica peers back at Malfoy, flicks the toe of his shoe where his feet dangle over the lower cabinets. When had they become so friendly?

“You’re kidding me, right?” Harry says, because he can’t help it. He plops several meatballs onto Ron’s plate. Ron starts to dig in before he’s done serving him.

Hermione eyes Harry. “Of course I’m not. Draco did an amazing job with our first fundraising gala for the Elvish Workers’ Union. It was the most beautiful venue — you remember, don’t you, Harry? Ron, you were there, too. Nobody would’ve ever known we didn’t drop a dime on that from our Ministry-allocated budget.” Ron hums affirmatively around his mouthful, pasta sauce dripping from the corner of his mouth.

Harry does remember. Over the past several years, he’s received many an invite to Ministry galas and fundraising events. There were only a select few, for particularly good causes or people, that he chose to show his face at. He arches an eyebrow at Malfoy. “That was you?”

Malfoy’s posture has relaxed, his head resting against the upper cabinets where Harry keeps his mugs, his smile smug but easy. He swirls the wine mindlessly around in his glass. “It was. Least I could do for Granger, really, by way of apology for my horrific behavior back when I was a tit who idolized my father.”

Harry snorts, and as he scoops meatballs onto Ginny’s plate, he splatters some sauce onto the table. “Did everyone who was wronged by you at Hogwarts get to collect a favor from you? Where’s mine?”

“I wasn’t the only one who was a tit at school, Potter. You deserved a fair amount of what I gave you.”

“What?! Was it in therapy, then, that you blocked out half the cruel shit you did?” Shit. Harry wasn’t supposed to let that slip. He believes it was mandated at Malfoy’s hearing, though, along with his house arrest. Perhaps he’s allowed to know.

Malfoy’s faint smile doesn’t fade. “Don’t you fucking start, Potter —“

“So now your elves are part of a union, you’ve made amends with Hermione and everyone else you called a fucking Mudblood, and you’re done with pure bloodlines? What makes you think anyone’s going to trust you on _any_ of this?”

“Believe it or not, Potter, I am not my father. Once upon a time, I may have taken his opinions as truth, but I’m my own person, on all counts separate —“

“Shut up, you two!” Ginny hollers. When both Harry and Malfoy turn to look at her, she lowers herself back into her seat. “You do realize there’s six other people in this room, don’t you? None of whom came here to be reminded of the fresh hell that was you two at Hogwarts? If you don’t stop, I’m going to leave, and purposely ruin what could still be a perfectly nice dinner.” A heavy silence follows, only broken by the clink of Ron’s utensils hitting the ceramic of his plate. He hounds Harry over for a second round of meatballs.

“Scrummy, ‘arry,” he mutters, mouth full, as Harry dishes him a few more.

“There’s a new breed of Wrackspurt found in Norway that emerges in large numbers around the time of the Winter solstice. They say that they don’t only make your brain fuzzy, but they can also make it irrationally sad or angry. Supposedly, there’s a correlation between the size of the neo-Wrackspurt population and the prominence of seasonal affective disorder for this reason. Perhaps they’ve migrated to Britain. But it’s only April,” muses Luna. She offers Harry a friendly smile as he serves her meatballs, which he tries to return. He’s slightly distracted, though, by the way Ginny looks at her and brushes her long hair behind her ear.

Once everyone has food on their plate and Danica has made sure that their wine glasses are all topped off, friendly conversation slowly resumes. Harry sits between Creasey and Danica, which is both a blessing and a curse; the former because he has Danica to distract him from Creasey’s idiocy, and Ron across from him to kick at his toes and smirk indecently whenever Danica fixes Harry’s shirt collar or eyes his lips for too long, and a curse because Malfoy and Hermione are deeply engrossed in conversation and Creasey is too skinny to provide much of a sound buffer. Hermione doesn’t drink much, usually, but her and Malfoy are practically splitting a bottle between themselves and the three elves who sit beside them — Iggy next to Hermione, Tilly next to Malfoy, and Kreacher at the head of the table. 

“Did you know about the Elvish Workers’ Union thing? With Malfoy?” Harry asks Ron, twisting his fork into the last of his spaghetti. 

Ron looks like he needs a nap, and is struggling to sit up straight and keep his fingers laced over his stomach as he doesn’t have a backrest to keep him upright. “What? Oh, er, I think so,” he murmurs. His eyes flit down the length of the table to Malfoy and then back to Harry’s face. “I dunno, mate. She likes him. For business and non-business matters, supposedly. I’ve gotta play nice with Malfoy when she’s around. It’s easier to hate him at the Office when there’s no threat of a clothing treatment.”

Harry blinks in confusion. “What the hell are you on about?”

Ron smiles timidly. “‘Mione’s realized that I don’t mind it that much when she gives me the silent treatment. It just doesn’t work on me. So she’s switched to never being naked ‘round me when I’ve screwed up somehow. Clothing treatment, y’know?” He shudders and grimaces. “It’s awful.”

Harry just smiles faintly and shakes his head. 

“No! No. Absolutely not.” It’s Malfoy, off to Harry’s right, arms raised high in defense. “I won’t permit it.”

Hermione laughs and claps her hands together. “They don’t need your permission for anything, Draco. What were you saying, Iggy?”

“I says I could play Master Draco’s favorite since he was a wee boy,” Iggy proclaims, evidently inebriated despite the fact that he’s drinking wine from one of Harry’s shot glasses. He snaps his fingers, and a fiddle appears in his one hand, a bow in his other. “Master Draco use’ta dance like —“

“No, no, too far. Shut up, Iggy. Stop right there. Drop that wicked instrument. Make it go away. _Evanesco_ ,” Malfoy whines, but Iggy Apparates to Malfoy’s side before the spell can hit the fiddle, and the door of the cabinet behind where Iggy had stood disappears instead. Tilly snaps her fingers, too, Conjures her own fiddle, and Hermione claps again, overjoyed.

“Let’s hear it!” she says encouragingly. Malfoy’s forehead is against the table, his fingers ruffling up his perfectly styled hair.

“I wanna see you dance,” says Creasey, eyebrows waggling like they’re ready to take flight off his face.

“Sod off, _Clemence_ ,” Malfoy grouses. 

“There’s no room in here to dance, though,” Hermione says thoughtfully, tapping her fingertip against her chin. She rises from the table, encircles it to reach Malfoy, and removes one of his hands from his hair so she can tug on it. “Drawing room, Draco,” she chivvies. 

“No,” says Malfoy, right into the table.

Hermione stops pulling, but she still has a firm grip on his hand. “Hey, Draco, remember that time you accidentally hit me with a _Densaugeo_ hex —“

“Merlin’s fucking beard! Alright, alright!” Malfoy stands up swiftly, rolls his eyes when Creasey hoots a celebratory “eyy!”, and allows Hermione to guide him out of the kitchen. Nobody makes a move to follow, all simultaneously befuddled, before Iggy and Tilly suddenly run out after them, spurring Luna to drag Ginny out of her seat and Ron to leap up, presumably to go make sure Malfoy isn’t necking his girlfriend. _Don’t worry, Ron, not his type,_ Harry mentally tells him, but they haven’t exactly figured out the whole mind-reading thing yet, and by then, Ron is gone.

Creasey’s reaction time is considerably delayed, and Harry takes note not to ever allow Creasey into the field with him while he’s tipsy. Given his recent streak of bad luck, he wouldn’t consider it an outrageous event. As Creasey heaves himself up from the bench, Harry feels Danica’s fingers curl into the front of his t-shirt. He hadn’t noticed her get up, but now she’s draped over his shoulders, her warm lips pressed to his ear.

“If you don’t ask me to dance to elvish fiddle music with you, Harry James, I’m going to be a very sad girl,” she simpers, running her palm down between his pecs. His eyelids flutter shut briefly and he exhales a shaky chuckle.

“Who do you think I am, Dan?” Harry asks, swinging his legs over the bench and taking her by the hand.

The living room is lively with the sound of sprightly fiddle music. Harry decides not to question it, though, because even Kreacher is bopping along beside his two new friends. The glittering hem of Luna’s mint-green skirt is flying everywhere as she executes moves that are a suspicious cross between Irish stepdance and hip-hop, while Ginny is quite literally dying beside her, hands covering her face just enough that she can still peer between her fingers as she giggles. Ron stands right by the doorway, mixed emotions playing across his face, and Harry has only to follow his gaze to find Hermione holding fast to Malfoy’s limp wrists as she jives all alone. Malfoy smiles, though, and his shoulders and feet are moving, as if he’s trying very hard not to succumb to the music.

“I love this music! It reminds me of the Walpurgisnacht orgies in the mountains with the German witches,” Luna says dreamily. “It’s really rather beautiful. The Muggles light bonfires everywhere to ward off magical beings, but it just looks phantasmagorical.”

“I really don’t know how to feel right now,” Ron says.

“You get me, bro,” says Creasey from right beside him. His eyes are also fixated on that corner of the room. Ron frowns at Creasey, like he wishes he could take it back, but doesn’t respond.

“Don’t be such killjoys, lads. There’s plenty of love to go around!” Danica sings as she tugs Harry toward the carpeted middle of the room. He shrugs apologetically at Ron, then gives Danica a twirl.

Harry doesn’t know when the firewhisky started to circulate, but there’s a glass in his hand some time later. He can only assume Ron broke into the liquor cabinet when Malfoy had given in and proceeded to properly swing-dance with Hermione. Properly, as in he’d actually known what he was doing. It’d been a bizarre and oddly attractive sight. Danica had cheered, and Harry’d had only the alcohol to blame for why he’d simply stared. The fiddle music has died down since, and there’s a soft, romantic melody emanating from the piano in the corner. Ginny is playing, which — has she always played? Harry hadn’t known. Should he have known? Ginny knew how to play the piano and hadn’t told him, Harry hadn’t liked the way she’d bossed him around in the bedroom and had never told her. He suspects those were only small contributing factors to their split, though. 

Luna slow dances with Kreacher in her arms. He looks very lovestruck, an emotion Harry didn’t know Kreacher could express. Hermione and Ron are reunited, finally, his hands on her waist and hers on his shoulders with their heads bowed together, swaying to and fro and speaking in that hushed lovers’ language of theirs that Harry will never be able to understand. Mirroring them are Iggy and Tilly, who can’t quite dance with the same rhythm, but seem to enjoy being tangled in one another’s arms nonetheless. Malfoy had been discussing Ginny’s Quidditch career with her, and how he’s been to numerous Harpies games since the Falmouth Falcons had started to “regularly suck balls.” Now, he’s sprawled across the top of the piano, long legs draped over the edge enough that his pale shins are visible above his black socks. They’re still chatting, but less sensibly.

“I can feel it in my heart,” Malfoy declares over the volume of the music, referring to the vibrations of the piano music. “In my heart of hearts.”

“That’s well poetic, Draco,” Ginny says, her fingers picking up their pace on the keys.

“Thank you. I stole it from Hamlet.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a play, Ginevra, by possibly the most famous squib who ever lived.”

“Yeah? Who?”

“Shakespeare.”

“Don’t know of any shake-spheres.”

Malfoy just smiles vaguely as he peers down his body to watch the amber liquid in his glass — resting upon the middle of his chest — vibrate with the sound waves from the piano beneath. His hair is somewhat disheveled, falling away from his forehead. Harry has a nice view of it from the sofa, where he sits between Creasey and Danica. He continues to play with a lock of Danica’s hair to distract himself.

The next thing he knows, Malfoy is squeezing into the very small space between Harry and Creasey on the sofa. Creasey looks overjoyed for the first time in an hour, even if he’s on the verge of passing out. Danica tries to make room, but by the time Malfoy’s settled, his leg is plastered along the side of Harry’s, and his other one is draped across Creasey’s lap. He doesn’t even say a fucking word, just takes a sip of his whisky, gazing straight ahead. 

Danica, hugging Harry’s arm in that favorite way of hers, smiles breezily at Malfoy. “Hermione said Draco’s elves are in the union,” she says, cocking her head to the side as she looks at Harry. “Why isn’t Kreacher?”

Harry snorts, nibbling at his lower lip in an effort to ignore the heat radiating from Malfoy’s leg. “Believe me, Hermione tried. She brought him pamphlets and everything, sat him down for personal counseling sessions. He still thinks it’s some elaborate ruse we’re trying to pull on him, says that the damned liberal faction of elves will never prevail.”

Danica laughs. “He’s a silly old coot.”

“He probably hasn’t properly left this place in years, Potter, except to cater to everyone’s whims,” Malfoy says, angling his head toward Harry. They’re all shoulder-to-shoulder, so he’s incredibly close. Harry could easily afford a bigger couch. It all boils down to whether or not he wants one, though, doesn’t it? He looks fleetingly away from Malfoy when he’s unsure if it’s just him burning up, or if the room temperature is rising, and sees that Kreacher is tending the fire. “Your whims. Who knows what antiquated customs the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black raised him with?” Malfoy continues, and Harry meets his eyes. Malfoy’s lips quirk up at the corners, and Harry almost smiles back without even bloody thinking, but then he notices it’s because Creasey’s fingers are beneath the collar of Malfoy’s shirt, massaging into the curve where his neck meets his shoulder. Malfoy elbows him in the ribs. “Quit it, Clemence,” he mutters, then clears his throat. “As I was saying, he probably still thinks it’s normal to whip children in punishment and for Muggles to ride horse-drawn carriages. It could easily be unfathomable to him that house-elves could ever form a union.”

“You’re so right, Draco,” Danica says thoughtfully, but Harry hardly hears her. 

“Right,” mutters Harry. His blood moves through his veins like molasses. He looks at Malfoy’s lips, which are pink and thin, not frowning. Harry thinks Malfoy notices—no, he definitely notices, because he licks his lips and turns his head away from Harry. “‘Cos you’re a champion of elvish liberalism now, aren’t you?” He curses mentally and moves his hand to Danica’s thigh. 

Malfoy sighs. “Bite me, Potter. Just facts.”

Fuck. He wants to, though. He wants to tell Malfoy that his hair is a bit astray, can he fix it for him? Can he bite him where he most likely tastes like wine and firewhisky? Not too hard, though. Not too gentle, either.

Fuck. Spiraling, Harry reminds himself. He thinks, even with its present guests, he’s the least sane person in the room. And that’s saying something.

“Harry.” Hermione’s voice interrupts his internal crisis, and he looks up to find her standing in front of him, fingers laced with Ron’s. She smiles faintly, bends at the knees so she can ruffle his hair fondly. “I have a meeting with the Undersecretary tomorrow morning about my plans for the Goblin Liaison office. It’s late, I ought to go.” As she straightens up, she locks eyes with Danica. “It was nice to see you. Keep in touch, yeah? I was being serious about my grievances with the Department of Magical Education.” She chuckles and leans over to kiss Danica on the cheek and squeeze her hand. Ron looks blissed out already, like he’s been promised something that night before Hermione prepares for her meeting with the Undersecretary, and gives Harry a fuzzy nod.

“See you tomorrow, mate,” is all he says.

The music stops when Luna and Ginny leave, too, hand-in-hand. The elves, all three of them, are passed out — Kreacher on the floor, Malfoy’s elves in an armchair together.

“I don’t happen to have any meetings with the Undersecretary tomorrow morning,” Creasey murmurs as he stretches his arms above his head. One of them just happens to land around Malfoy’s shoulders as he relaxes, his spidery hand brushing Harry’s shoulder, too. He cringes and shifts out of his reach.

Malfoy rolls his eyes. “We’re not shagging.”

Creasey’s jaw drops open. “I never implied —!“

“Yes, you did.” Without preamble, Malfoy grabs Creasey by the front of his shirt, hauls him into a dirty kiss that lasts at least ten seconds. Not that Harry’s counting. Danica whoops, and Harry gapes in mild horror. When Malfoy lets go of him, Creasey’s shirt is all rumpled at the front, and his eyes are glazed over like he’s just chugged a pint of Euphoria. Malfoy hounds him up from the sofa, shoving Creasey onto his feet without ever getting up himself. Creasey just blinks down at Malfoy, running a hand through his hair, apparently still trying to catch his breath. Malfoy has more room now, Harry thinks bittersweetly as he watches him settle comfortably into the empty space, their bodily contact broken. He wipes off his mouth a bit too obscenely with the sleeve of his sweater, and raises his eyebrows at Creasey with a nod toward the fireplace expectantly. “Go on.” 

Creasey nods slowly himself, then gives Harry a vague salute before he stumbles toward the fireplace. He slurs his address so badly before tossing in the Floo powder that even Harry hopes he makes it home safely.

“Draco, you’re a hoot,” says Danica as she leans behind Harry to shove teasingly at his shoulder. 

Malfoy looks almost as if he’d forgotten Harry and Danica were there when he glances over at them. His lips tilt in a half-smile as he meets Harry’s gaze instead of Danica’s, and he merely shrugs in response.

Malfoy gets up and grabs the old quilt from the arm of the couch. He drapes it over the snoozing Iggy and Tilly, and then takes a seat at the piano bench. Clair de Lune floats through the room seconds later.

Harry feels Danica’s fingers twist into his hair, her lips press to the side of his neck. It makes warm prickles run down his spine. It’s nice; her touch on his skin, the sight of Malfoy sitting at piano, playing the tune slowly and lazily and with a few blunders here and there, but it’s lovely. It almost puts Harry to sleep. Except, then, Danica purrs into his ear, “Did you know, Harry, that I _also_ don’t have a meeting with the Undersecretary tomorrow morning?” A smile pulls at Harry’s lips, and he turns his head to meet her eyes. He could dismiss her as easily as Malfoy had Creasey. Then again, it’s been a week since he’s been with her. It’s been a long, horny, mentally and physically frustrating week. 

“Upstairs? Not sure Malfoy wants a show.” Would it be rude? It’s his house.

“I really don’t,” Malfoy confirms blankly from the corner of the room. Danica and Harry both exchange glances, and she lets out a helpless laugh, rising from the couch. The music halts temporarily as Danica scampers over and forces a hug onto Malfoy, leaning over him on the piano bench. He reluctantly returns it, and is left to smile in a puzzled manner once she draws away.

“So, so nice to meet you, Draco. Hope I get to see you again soon. Harry’s really having all the fun, hoarding you here all to himself,” she says, before passing out of the room, her footsteps fading up the stairs. Harry has a feeling her sentiments were genuine but sarcastic simultaneously. He clears his throat and follows, hesitating in the doorway for some reason. Malfoy stops in the middle of his Debussy again, not looking up as his fingers hover over the keys.

“Hope you’re not expecting a hug yourself, Potter.”

Harry leaves the room hastily. 

***

Fucking to the faint sound of Liszt’s “Love Dream” that drifts up the stairs is nothing short of mesmerizing. Danica is beautiful, and her tits hang in Harry’s face, and she makes these soft, musical noises that make much too nice of an accompaniment to the piano. Yet, Harry still struggles to keep his mind on her, to keep his jealousy of Creasey, of all fucking people, from consuming his headspace. Malfoy seems to go all forte right as Harry’s climaxing, too, which leaves a tingling feeling in the pit of his stomach as Danica sags down beside him. She falls right to sleep.

Harry lays there for a good five minutes, but even then, the [music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hyAOYMUVDs) downstairs doesn’t stop. It shouldn’t keep him awake, by any means, as it’s quite lulling. He gets up, shrugs back into his t-shirt, puts his glasses back on, and tiptoes down the stairs.

The playing stops abruptly, and starts up again, and stops again whenever Malfoy’s fingers get tangled together or tired, it seems. Harry leans against the wall, just outside the parlour, picturing that right through that wall, feet, or even inches away, Malfoy is sitting.

“Fuck,” he hears him sigh momentarily. Harry stares at the floor, frozen, and listens to the scratch of a glass being dragged across the top of the piano. Then, “How the fuck did you pass Stealth and Tracking, Potter? Is that no longer a requirement to become an Auror? Bet they — oh, that’s it. They let you right in, didn’t they?”

Harry removes his glasses to scrub a hand over his face as he traipses into the living room. When he puts them back on, Malfoy is gazing at him impassively from behind the piano.

“What are you doing?” he demands tiredly.

Harry frowns as he puts his hands on his hips. “Wandering about my own house at one in the morning. Is that allowed?”

Malfoy just watches him, the disgust growing in his eyes as he looks Harry up and down. “I suppose it is.”

Harry tilts his head in a nod, then approaches the piano slowly. Why? Because he’s still drunk. That’s the only reason he can think of that won’t make his boxers tighten if he dwells on it too much. “Now that I have your permission to be here,” he starts, “in my own house,” freezes in his for a brief moment to hiccup, at which Malfoy scoffs, “what are you playing?” He places his hands on the piano, pressing his fingerprints into the otherwise glossy surface, and leans his weight into the heels of his hands.

“Trying to play,” Malfoy corrects, straightening his spine when Harry gets nearer, though he doesn’t look any less sloshed than Harry knows him to be. “Nocturne in C-sharp minor. Chopin. Mother could play it perfectly. I can’t do the trills like her.” He fingers the first few slow and heavy notes, then lets his hands drop to his lap. Harry doesn’t say anything, watches Malfoy rub his palms along his thighs before he draws his wand. He mumbles something so quietly that Harry can’t hear as he lays the tip of his wand against one of the keys, and then the piano comes to life under the spell. Malfoy looks hazily pleased as the melancholy melody he’d been trying to play fills the room, and he folds his arms over his chest. 

“It sounds sad,” says Harry. Because Malfoy’s focus is elsewhere, he capitalizes on the opportunity to openly stare at his face. “Does it make you think of Zabini?”

If Malfoy wasn’t looking at him before, he is now. He opens his mouth to retort, almost instantly, but then his scowl dissolves into a weak laugh that’s kind of beautiful. “I’m too drunk to argue with you, Potter. Don’t press me on this.” He goes back to watching the keys depress to the tune of Nocturne, and Harry’s tempted to say that he thinks that nothing could dull Malfoy’s ability to put up a fight, especially against him. Verbally, that is.

“They didn’t just let me in,” Harry says belatedly. “Into the Aurors, I mean. Got my NEWTs. Did the training. All of it. Did relatively well on Stealth and Tracking, actually.”

Malfoy’s eyes narrow. “I don’t give a shit.”

Harry continues to talk anyway. “All the sneaking ‘round I did at Hogwarts probably helped. Sneaking after you in sixth year.”

“Please don’t remind me.”

“I didn’t put the pieces together fast enough, though —“

“She didn’t leave me anything,” Malfoy says suddenly, and Harry shuts up. He’s about to ask for clarification when Malfoy leans his head against the top of the piano, so all Harry can see is his hair and slumped shoulders. “No note. Nothing. Bugger all. And I thought that maybe I’d’ve gotten an owl by now, or _something_ , but I’ve got fuck all.” 

Malfoy’s venting, Harry realizes, and he shifts awkwardly on his feet, uncertain as to how exactly one deals with a venting Malfoy. Blaise Zabini would snog him, probably. Harry wouldn’t mind that, but he thinks Malfoy would.

“You mean… Narcissa?”

“Yes, you blithering idiot.” Malfoy’s ribs expand and compress in a steady rhythm as he breathes. Harry bites his lower lip and shifts to lean his side up against the piano.

“You’d… you’d tell us, right? You’d alert the Aurors if you did receive an owl? Or any kind of signal?”

Malfoy doesn’t move, and Harry thinks he might’ve passed out against the piano, but then he sits up abruptly and pins Harry with a hateful glare. “Yes, Potter. I would tell you if I received an owl,” he deadpans. He pushes the piano bench back, which screeches across the wooden floor, and stands up with a bitter smile. Harry winces. “I want to find them just as badly as you and your merry band of dimwits down at the Ministry do.” Malfoy shoots a counterspell at the piano so it falls silent, and stumbles a bit on his exit, but Harry catches him by the wrist before he can get too far.

“Malfoy,” he pleads, almost like he’s apologizing.

Malfoy doesn’t understand, though. “What, Potter?” He tears his arm out of Harry’s grasp, brings his hand up to his own head like he’s dizzy. “Fuck off. You smell like you’ve just slept for three days in a brothel’s laundry basket.” His skeptical gaze traces every inch of Harry’s face, and then he’s turning and heading up the stairs, footsteps heavier than usual. Harry plops down onto the end of the piano bench. He has a feeling he would’ve been quite a bit happier if he’d just stayed in bed post-orgasm. He carefully shuts the keyboard cover, and then picks up what he assumes to be Malfoy’s whisky glass from the top of the piano. He holds it up to the light, attempts to find the exact spot that Malfoy’s lips had touched when he’d drank, the imprint of them against the glass, and when he does, he brushes his thumb against it, smearing it with his own fingerprint. Somewhat unsanitary, given where his fingers have been in the past hour, but he doesn’t care. He brings the glass to his lips and tilts it back, swallowing what Malfoy had left behind.


	8. Chapter 8

“Draco, this is absolutely ridiculous.”

Draco brings a finger swiftly up to his lips, frowning at Pansy. “Lower your voice. He’ll hear.”

Pansy presses her tongue to the inside of her cheek and stares blankly at him. “Draco. You’ve got about a million Muffliatos on the room already. It’s pretty damn obvious. Outside, it sounds like you’re farming wasps in here, and _in_ here, I can hear my own bloody voice ringing in my ears. Stop whispering. I think you’re covered.”

Draco stops mid-pacing, arms linked behind his back, and glances to where Pansy is sitting on a velvet-upholstered pouf by the foot of the bed. It’s new.

“You’re acting paranoid,” she states before he can even speak again. “Plus, I don’t even know what you’re afraid of him overhearing!”

Draco wrinkles his nose and throws his hands up into the air in dramatic surrender before he places them onto his hips and continues to pace. Pansy reacts to this as if they’re having a perfectly normal, verbal conversation. 

“You’re being such a brat. I know you’re not plotting against him. You’ve… matured past that,” she says, though her tone is half-doubtful. “I know you don’t care if he knows what you think of him, so it’s not the gossip you’re worried about. And all you do is read your newspapers and draw floor plans and wank to Blaise. Oh, oh. That’s what you’re afraid of, yeah? Him hearing you tug off to Blaise? Do you still do that, babe? Please. That’s so sad. I sympathized with you even up to six months ago, but now it’s getting out of hand.”

Draco whips around, staring accusingly at Pansy. “No! Shut up. That’s not why,” he hisses.

“Paloma has the best tits I’ve ever seen, but he still stares at mine whenever given the chance.”

“It’s because you’ve got great tits, too, and no modesty.”

Pansy shrugs, smiling absently. “My point is he’s not worth it.”

“Now you’re starting to sound like Potter. Anyhow, I just — I just don’t want to be involved in his life in any way. I want him to stay away from me, and I want to stay away from him. And that becomes complicated now that I’m living in his charming, little shanty, so if I have to Muffle him out of my corner of it with brute force, I will.”

Pansy bites her lip, eyes wandering the walls, looking like she hadn’t paid attention to half of that.  She’s sporting black lipstick, which Draco had found slightly alarming when she’d walked in through Potter’s fireplace.

“Potter knows about you and Blaise?”

Draco rolls his eyes. “And you complain about me being a terrible listener. Yes, I think he does. It could’ve just been… He had to come with me to the wedding venue last weekend. Perhaps he noticed something was off.”

“He saw you two together? Draco, dearest, you’re a terrible actor. Even a blind Troll could sense that you thirst for both his dick and his heart.”

“Nice, Pans.”

She bites her tongue as she smiles, pink and white against the dusky black of her lips. “And he’s been giving you relationship advice?”

Draco folds his arms over his chest and perches against the edge of his desk. “Trying to, I think.” Pansy rubs her chin and doesn’t meet his eyes, her smile suddenly fading. “What is it?”

“Oh, nothing. Actually, not nothing. I’ve been thinking about what you said when you last firecalled me, when you said I had a crush on Ron Weasley. And I thought you were mad, but I think you’re right.”

Draco scoffs, but it’s not long before he’s sinking down onto the very small pouf beside Pansy, a gleeful smirk on his face. “Of course I was. Am. I’m stellar at reading people. It’s the only good thing to come out of this pesky desk job at the Ministry. I get to see how you are when you’re at work, which I’ve never been able to wrap my mind around. And you’re exactly the same.” 

Pansy sighs, resting her chin against her hand as she gazes at the pair of them in the full-length mirror Draco had had installed. It’d been a necessity, really. Draco thinks Potter has a total of one mirror in his entire house, and it’s broken, like it was smashed once by an angry fist. “I know he’s still with Granger, and I’m no homewrecker, but he infuriates me so much that it makes me even more furious that I can’t fuck him.”

Draco grimaces. “That’s… certainly something. And I have no doubt you could make it happen. But please don’t mention Weasley in that context to me ever again.”

“Oh, come on, you pussy. He’s not unfuckable. Of course, he’s a Gryffindor, all the way down to his blood, _and_ there’s the fact that he’s a Weasley —"

“That’s literally everything right there, Pansy. You’ve got it all. Weasley is twenty percent Gryffindor, eighty percent essence of Weasel. Nothing else.”

“ _But_ , he’s not gawky anymore. I think he has nice shoulders. And he’s tall.”

Draco reflects on this, and he shrugs. “Yes. I suppose you’re right. Especially about the shoulders.” When Pansy grins, he juts a finger at her threateningly. “Don’t ever tell him I said that.” Then he drops his hand and tilts his head against hers. They survey themselves in the mirror silently until Pansy finally speaks.

“Fuck, I just remembered. Whore!” she huffs, narrowing her eyes at the distant Draco in the reflection. “You snogged my work shag.”

“What?” Draco doesn’t think he’s snogged anyone in months. Then he vaguely recalls it — several nights ago, downstairs in Potter’s parlour, when Clemence got handsy with him. All that had truly stuck with him from that night and hovered on the surface of his conscience was his frustration with Potter; coming downstairs, post-shag, trying to drunkenly probe for information about Draco’s parents that Draco himself doesn’t fucking have. “Oh. Clemence. Pansy, he was gagging for it.”

“I know. He talks about your arse to anyone at the coffee cart who’ll listen. He spends the whole day there, I swear to Merlin’s wrinkled bollocks.”

“Won’t happen again, so. Don’t worry.”

Pansy puts a hand on his thigh, rubbing it comfortingly. “And why not?”

“I’m not into him.”

She removes her hand and rolls her eyes so he can see the whites of them. “Oh, brilliant. So I get to have your sloppy seconds now, is that it?”

“We only kissed!” Draco protests indignantly. “And it was technically you who had him first —"

“Shove off trying to console me. I can have whoever the fuck I want —"

“Not with that lipstick, you can’t. It’s terrifying.”

“That was the goal. I was going for the whole Dementor-esque, suck-your-soul-out-through-your-cock look.”

“Ah, well. In that case, you’re spot on.” 

They both struggle not to smile, and Draco slouches enough that he can press his face into the side of Pansy’s neck as she wraps her arms around him. He admires her un-chipped, cherry-red fingernails. 

“No chance of a ménage à trois with you, Clem, and I, then? I’d be content just to watch,” Pansy says. It’s strange how comforting she can make the most bizarre things sound. Draco likes to think he’s one of the few for whom she reserves that tone.

“Nah. Unless I get terribly, terribly bored. What about you, Weasley, and I, but I neither watch nor participate?”

“Sounds ideal.”

Draco snorts.

“I spoke to Potter yesterday,” she tacks on.

Draco’s chuckle fades into nothingness. “What do I care?”

“Because I wanted to see if my suspicions were true. And you just told me yourself you’re willing to ‘Muffle him out of your corner of the house with brute force’ if that’s what it takes for you to live as a hermit in his house. And he says he never sees you around, not even at mealtimes. I believe that’s enough of a case to make to Healer Patil that you’re engaging in self-destructive behavior. And, as your proxy emergency contact now that your mother is gone — she was already going off her rocker before she up and left, so I should really be number one — I consider it my personal responsibility to ensure that our little Draco is at his best.”

Draco draws out of her grip entirely, struggling — but totally managing — to get onto his feet and only marginally mess up his hair.

“You wouldn’t, you cow,” he says quietly, then traipses toward the mirror to tuck his hair back into place. “I’m just busy.”

Pansy sighs, pressing her palms together in between her knees. “Who knows how long the Ministry’ll take at the Manor? They’re a bunch of blundering know-nothings. It would be better, wouldn’t it, babe, if you weren’t always cooped up in here with only your elves?”

“Iggy and Tilly are great to me.”

There’s no response, and when Draco looks into the mirror, the pouf where Pansy had been sitting is empty. He’s suddenly aware of the sound of heavy block heel sandals clomping down the stairs, and he rushes after her.

When Draco finds her, she’s standing in the kitchen, and Potter’s at the kitchen table. It’s nine at night, and he’s wearing what he wore to the Ministry that day — yes, Draco pays attention, because he’s been trying to formulate a pattern for how often Potter cycles through the same three t-shirts and two pairs of blue jeans — except his trousers are gone. Of course they are. Potter’s staring at Pansy, either because he’s startled by her presence, or then because she’s braless underneath a thin vest top and has runny, black stockings on underneath her pleated skirt. Draco rolls his eyes and straddles the bench across the table from Potter.

“Thanks for inviting me to your piss-up Monday night, Potter,” she says as she sits down beside Draco. “Heard it was a good time.” Draco stares at the contents of the plate on the table in front of Potter — it’s a piece of bread slathered in a thick layer of jam. The end piece of the loaf, at that.

Potter clears his throat and adjusts his glasses. He’s slightly pink in the face. “Hi, Pansy,” he greets. “Yeah, listen, sorry about that, it was kind of impromptu —“

“Hello, Miss Pansy!” Tilly crows suddenly, beneath eye level, as both of Draco’s house-elves hug her around her middle.

“Hello, darlings,” Pansy replies as she touches both of their heads, her smile sweet until she turns it on Potter again. “I’m sure it was.” She rests her chin against her hand, then looks between Draco and Potter as if she’s waiting for something. Potter doesn’t dare look expectant, but Draco frowns deeply because she looks to be plotting something. Potter’s eyes flicker to Draco, as if he might provide some sort of explanation. Draco just looks away. Pansy reaches out and plucks up Potter’s empty teacup.

“I’m gonna read your leaves, yeah, Potter?” When Potter looks skeptical, Pansy tilts her head to the side. “I got an ‘O’ in Divination.”

Potter gets up, and Draco notices him make eye contact with Iggy, who somehow through gestures manages to ask ‘should I put a kettle on?’, and Potter shoots him a thumbs up in return. Draco is uncomfortable. “Not to discredit you, Pansy, but under Trelawney, I’m not sure that’s anything to be too proud of.” Still, he gets out a box of tealeaves, and drops a pinch into the cup in Pansy’s hands.

Pansy smiles emotionlessly, and hands it over to Iggy to fill with hot water. “You’d be surprised as to how accurate I can be.” She sets the cup down in front of Potter. While the tea steeps, she drums her fingernails against the table, assessing Potter, so Draco does, too. His hair looks like he’s just pulled his shirt off, but clearly it’s still on. And he’s unshaven, for the third time that week. Draco’s toes curl inside his shoes.

“So! I hear Lovegood’s dating Weasley’s sister. That’s new, isn’t it?” Pansy says. Draco nudges her foot under the table, because he’d really rather be upstairs, not babysitting Pansy to ensure she doesn’t have another ‘chat’ with Potter. “New and interesting, yes? Millie’s rather torn up about their split, but Loony is a free spirit, and there’s nothing she can do about that. When did you and Ginevra break up, Potter? Was it before or after she became a top five ranked Chaser, and realized she didn’t need your world-saving cock any longer? You were shagging Mandy from Misuse of Muggle Artefacts for a short time last year, weren’t you? ‘Cos she’s also a muff muncher nowadays — true facts, Potter, she’s really good, I would know —"

“Er —" interjects Potter eloquently.

“Drink up!” Pansy says, shoving the cup toward him and sloshing a bit onto the table. Tilly wipes it away with the speed of a — well, a diligent house-elf. Potter doesn’t hesitant to pick up the cup, and clearly winces at the heat, but he swallows the water anyway under Pansy’s watchful gaze, which Draco commends. He watches Potter’s face turn pinker and pinker with the heat. Then he lifts an eyebrow at Pansy.

“You’re saying all of Potter’s past girlfriends are into witches now?” Draco inquires with amusement. He doesn’t suppress his smile, and when he glances at Potter, he’s shooting Draco a glare.

Potter’s panting as he hands the near-empty cup over to Pansy, who then swirls it around and inverts it over Potter’s plate, beside his untouched meal. “Mandy was never my girlfriend,” he states, then picks up his jam-on-toast, because he’s twitchy and needs to occupy his hands somehow, Draco thinks. The jam drips all over his fingers. Draco laces his own fingers together, elbows on the table, and rests his nose against them. If it was La Confiture de Framboise Magique de Mademoiselle Miele, he might lick it off. Knowing Potter, it’s something loaded with corn syrup. “I’m not a bad lay,” Potter argues after a silence he interprets as disbelief, but Draco thinks Pansy’s just disgusted with his jam fingers, too.

She quirks a brow and purses her lips, picking up the mug from Potter’s plate. “Of course not. You’re just an enlightening one.” She smiles at him, then peers into the cup. Draco lifts his chin so that’s leaned against his fingers instead, and waits until Potter makes eye contact with him to mouth ‘you’re a bad lay.’

“That’s not what Danica said while you were moping around, playing Brahms,” Potter shoots back, his mouth half-full, which makes Draco flinch in fear that he’s shooting more than just words at him. He wants to smack him.

“I’m sure she was just roleplaying. The ‘Harry Potter and Cho Chang’ is rather popular in the bedroom these days, when you want to combine the joys of roleplaying with fumbling, depressing, vanilla sex. Pansy does it with Clemence when she’s feeling lazy.” Draco’s not sure if he’s embarrassed that he recalls Potter’s brief fling with Chang or not, but it’s too late to take anything back.

“I was fifteen!” Potter squawks, but Pansy holds up a hand.

“Shut up, you two,” she mutters, twisting the cup around in her hand. “There’s… the Grim, Potter, because I’ll kill you if you don’t invite me to your next do.” She eyes him, then smiles easily. “On an equally serious note, I see a ferret. That’s an indicator of particularly distressing jealousy. Ouch, Potter.” She hums mindlessly, tilting her head to the side. “Looks like a trowel. You will accomplish a task currently assigned to you. Let’s hope it’s the case of Draco’s father, so we can all pack up and go home, hm? And… a butterfly. Powerful passion and attraction, that is perhaps fickle, changing.” She sets the cup down, lips curling up wryly at the corners. Draco snatches it up and sees nothing but blobs. Potter, on the other hand, looks a bit unsettled.

“Thanks, Pansy,” he says blandly as he licks his fingers clean of jam, eyes fixed on the cup in Draco’s hands. “Is it possible for the ferret to a have a dual meaning, though?” Draco nearly drops the cup, so he shoves it back into Pansy’s hands and scowls at Potter.

“No,” he says flatly.

“I just thought, since we’re reflecting on our school days…”

“No. I’m sure your interactions with Cho Chang were plenty traumatizing, but you will never know such ridicule. Except, perhaps, when it gets around the Ministry that Harry Potter is turning all his girlfriends gay —"

“Half of them weren’t even my girlfriends, Malfoy —"

“Nonetheless, you’ve got to admit that there’s got to be some sort of correlation —"

“Hermione really overestimates how smart you are. If she were here, she’d definitely say ‘correlation does not imply causation’ —"

“I’m not daft, I know that. But can you think of any confounding variables in this study, Potter?” Draco picks up the steaming cup of tea that’s in front of him, takes a sip, and sets it down. Then he glances down, bewildered, because it most certainly wasn’t there two minutes ago. With a second, brief scrutiny of his surroundings, he finds that Pansy is gone, and Potter also has an identical cuppa. He knows Iggy and Tilly abetted in this crime somehow, but they’re nowhere in sight. He and Potter lock eyes silently as Draco wraps his fingers around the warm cup.

“Why so interested, anyway, Malfoy?”

Draco huffs out a weak laugh, swinging his other leg over the bench to sit on it properly and kicking Potter’s shin in the process. He pretends it was intentional. “I’m not, whatsoever. Just making observations.” Another lull in the argument follows, during which Draco deliberately looks into his tea to avoid Potter’s penetrating gaze. Then, Pansy’s block heels trail back into the kitchen as she swings the door open.

“That was an awful attempt at civil conversation,” she sighs. “Very, very boring.” Potter has the decency to look guilty for some reason, but Draco squints at her, his reply dying in his throat when a silvery Crup Patronus bounds into the room and sits down obediently in the air before Pansy.

“Suspected Dark magic use in a robbery in Bath, family of four, some sustained injuries, but all still alive. See you on the scene?” Weasley’s voice lilts up questioningly at the very end, as if he doesn’t want to strongly demand anything of Pansy. Not even her responsibilities. Smart boy. The Crup wags its tail, then vanishes. Potter’s smiling, as if he noticed the same about Weasley’s careful but emergent voice. Pansy sighs in a way that makes her blunt fringe flutter against her forehead. Then she turns to Draco.

“Alright. Duty calls. How do I look?” she asks, turning around in a circle, then cupping her breasts through her shirt, lifting them a bit, and then letting them bounce back into place. Potter gawks blatantly.

“Like you’re ready to suck a Dark wizard’s soul out of his dick,” Draco says. Pansy seems pleased with this, and blows him a kiss. She wriggles her fingers in a halfhearted wave to Potter, and departs the kitchen.

“I miss fieldwork,” Potter says emptily once she’s gone.

Draco sneers. “You’re a pervert, Potter.”

“What?! No —"

“Not to worry. I have fieldwork for you. I have a scheduled viewing for a house in Wigton tomorrow morning, and you’re coming with me.”

Potter pouts and brings his tea to his lips. The white porcelain scratches audibly against the stubble on his chin. “Wigton? That’s far.”

“Is it? How unfortunate it is that we don’t possess magic to help us out with that, and must travel by maneuvering the clumsy, metal beast that is the ma-toe-bomile. Be ready by seven.”

“Automobile.” Potter’s eyes are fixed on the table as he nods, but he coughs suddenly and cups a hand over his mouth to keep the tea from dripping everywhere post-uncouth spit take. “Did you say morning?”

Draco cringes and feels for his wand in his trouser pocket, muttering a few _Tergeo_ s under his breath to clear the table, Potter’s face, and his sticky jam fingers, too, for good measure. “Yes. If you’re not ready, I’ll leave without you, and disappear into the north as an assumed escapee and accomplice in my father’s crime. On your watch, might I mention.” Potter’s confusion when he touches his face, only for his fingers to come away dry, is the most entertaining thing Draco’s seen in some time. Draco hops up from the bench, straightens his jumper, and considers the arrangement of the kitchen table. It looks very much like he’s just sat down to tea with Potter. And on that note, he must leave the scene before anyone other than Pansy discovers this. “Good night, Potter,” he says quietly and strides out of the kitchen.

*** 

Eighth year Potions had been a struggle without a trusty, annotated guidebook to help Harry cheat his way through. His own Amortentia is bubbling its way to a dull, gray color, and _It’s too far gone, Harry, there’s nothing you can do to salvage it_ , Hermione says from beside him, but hers smells fantastic, like treacle tart, like the firewhisky on Malfoy’s breath as he’d sat next to him on the couch in his living room, his best friends dancing and prancing all around them. Malfoy. Malfoy didn’t return for eighth year, but maybe Harry was mistaken, because he’s right there, directly across the room from him. Harry stares at him in a daze, filling a vial with his murky potion, watching a congealed glob fall into the funnel. Slughorn shakes his head disapprovingly as he passes through Harry’s view, blocking Malfoy with his wideness for several seconds. Fuck him. Fuck him for that. Harry stoppers his vial with the intention of taking it to Slughorn’s desk, but he wanders toward Malfoy instead. Malfoy’s behind his own cauldron, steam rising from it, making the front of his slicked-back hair curl adorably and his forehead shine with a faint sheen of sweat. Malfoy tilts his head back, then, and Harry follows the column of his throat down to his chest, and then further, to where Blaise Zabini’s hand is down the front of his trousers…

Sunlight makes Harry’s eyelids burn orange until he opens them and gets a blurry look at the room. He groans unabashedly and rolls onto his side in bed, reaching for his glasses, furling and unfurling his fingers to pop his knuckles as he does. More light floods the room, and Harry gets his glasses on. Malfoy is there, in his bedroom, parting the drapes at the window and forcing the window open. The Potions classroom is gone, Blaise Zabini’s hand is not, in fact, down Malfoy’s crotch, but Harry feels a very distinct breeze on his own nether regions as a draft wafts in through the window. He scratches the top of his head, neither body nor brain fully awake, but enough to rapidly whisk his sheets over his completely naked body.

“Smells like something died in here. Unfortunately, you seem to have stirred, Potter, so it’s not you,” Malfoy says, picking across the room like he’s playing a round of the game Harry would play on the checkerboard tiles of Mrs. Figg’s kitchen whenever the Dursleys popped out to the local carnival or Bournemouth Pier. Don’t step on the white tiles, only the black. The white tiles are lava. Malfoy’s white tiles are Harry’s discarded clothes that have accumulated after a week of neglect. Harry grunts in response, because he thinks he’s supposed to, and rubs at his left eye underneath his glasses as Malfoy continues to blabber. “And thank you for finally covering up. You were full-on mooning me when I came in. You may not have set any sort of alarm to get yourself up before seven as I clearly asked you to last night, but I was certainly alarmed to be faced with Savior-arse before I’ve even seen the sun.”

“Oh, shit. Sorry,” he murmurs, voice rough. Harry’s vaguely aware that he’s half-hard under the sheets, but Malfoy’s eyes have been actively avoiding him as he makes his way to Harry’s other window, so he’s not too concerned.

“You’re not forgiven. Please put some clothes on. We have places to be.” Malfoy whips open the curtains on the other window. Harry watches him, reflecting. It’s uncharted territory, he thinks. Malfoy entered his bedroom, which he hasn’t done since his first day at Grimmauld Place. He’s opened Harry’s curtains for him, seen Harry’s dirty laundry. And his bare arse. Harry swallows thickly, rubs a hand over the stubble on his neck. Weird. When he looks over at Malfoy, he finds him staring at Harry, hands on his hips. Malfoy looks, once again, very sweet in Muggle clothes. His trousers are an olive-green tartan, subtly flared at the ankles, and he’s wearing a black blazer and turtleneck. When Harry’s roaming gaze reaches his eyes, though, he doesn’t look pleased about the stalling. “What are you doing?”

Harry hesitates, pulling his sheets further over his lap. “Just — turn around, or something.”

Malfoy blinks impatiently. “Merlin, you’re a child.” But he does turn to face the opposite wall.

Harry slips out of bed, steps into the jeans he’d worn the day before that are laying across the foot of his bed, and wiggles into a black t-shirt that doesn’t smell nearly as bad as the first one he picks up from the floor. “I just want some privacy, Malfoy, as that apparently doesn’t exist in my own bedroom anymore.”

Malfoy pivots on the heel of his shiny, dragon leather shoe just as Harry’s pulling on a white sock that almost matches the other white sock he’s got on except for the red band going around the ankle. “If you’d been awake, I wouldn’t have needed to invade your privacy.”

“Just — knock next time?”

“Oh, believe me. I knocked.”

Harry frowns. He believes him. “Where did you say we were going? A house? In Cumbria? Why? Does this have something to do with the wedding again? A wedding gift? Wouldn’t’ve thought Zabini would want to live somewhere so… so… distant.”

“No, Potter,” Malfoy sighs as he rubs at his forehead and leans into the side of Harry’s bed. “No, it’s not a wedding gift. I’m luring you out there so I can finally kill you, understand? Hurry up.”

“Right.” Harry scratches the top of his head as he kicks clothes out of his way to unearth his trainers. Though it’s an empty threat, he still considers sending Ron, or, God forbid, Creasey, some sort of message about his destination, and what to do with his remains if they reached him too late — if they found any.

Malfoy’s on his way out the door when he stops and turns around to assess Harry, like an afterthought. “I’d forgotten to tell you to dress like a pitifully ordinary Muggle, but you did that perfectly fine on your own. Well done.”

“Uh, thanks?”

***

Malfoy Side-Alongs him to a roadside Harry guesses is in Wigton. He’s been steadily good at Apparating since finally receiving his license, but when they land in Wigton, Malfoy’s clean on his feet and already striding down a long driveway while Harry’s still scrambling off the ground and brushing dust from the knees of his jeans. He jogs to catch up with him, sticking his hands into the pockets of his jeans as he gazes at Malfoy’s profile.

“When exactly are you planning on killing me?”

The faintest tug of a smile shows on Malfoy’s lips. “If it happens that you ruin this deal for me, Potter, then at that exact moment.”

“Deal?”

“I’m buying that house.” Malfoy nods forward to where crumbling, stone gates open to an endlessly grassy, green property, at the center of which a charming, two-storey brick house sits, sealing off the twisting driveway.

“Huh.” Harry nods. Then, after a moment, “why?”

“Just shut up, Potter.”

A stout woman, clutching a clipboard to her bosom, is half-running over to them. She wears a tweet jacket and skirt, and kicks up dust in little clouds as her tiny feet shuffle along the drive. “Mr. Martin! Hello! You are Mr. Martin, yes?” she calls unnecessarily across the distance between her and Malfoy and Harry. Malfoy comes to a stop when she gets close enough, and Harry watches him shake her hand. She turns toward Harry, too, and he quickly mimics the gesture. 

“That would be me, yes,” Malfoy says, employing a considerably softer, more affable tone to speak to the woman than he had seconds ago to Harry. Harry chuckles, but it turns rapidly into a cough when Malfoy’s eyes close in on him.

“And you must be the other Mr. Martin,” the woman says, smiling warmly at Harry. His and Malfoy’s eyes widen in concurrent understanding, and Harry shakes his head rapidly as Malfoy chokes out an emphatic “No!”, but the woman is already toddling in the direction of the house.

“So lovely. We need more of you people up here, convincing the local folk to be more open-minded. Not that they make bad neighbors, no, no,” she tuts. “It’s a beautiful property, though, isn’t it?”

Malfoy hums affirmatively, but doesn’t speak a word or look at Harry. They reach the front steps of the home together, and the woman stops short, giving Malfoy a forced, squinty smile. “I’ll let you two have a look around. I’ll — I’ll be out here, if you need me.”

Malfoy grins, eyebrows lifting, and opens the front door. He holds it open for Harry, presumably, because he’s nodding for him to enter. “Go on, Mr. Martin,” he says, and Harry gives him a quizzical look, but steps over the threshold anyway. Malfoy follows and closes the door behind them.

There’s a definite bounce to Malfoy’s step once they’re inside. “You gonna tell me what this is all about?” Harry asks, eyes wandering. It’s gorgeous inside, it is. Lovely finishes, old fixtures, and probably crown molding worth creaming over, if Harry knew what that was and how to identify it.

“Can’t you feel it, Potter?” Malfoy strides down the hall, sweeping his palm along the cream-coloured wall. “The magic.”

Harry presses his hand to the wall, too, expecting to feel absolutely nothing. But he does. It’s not obvious, but there’s something akin to a pulse beneath his skin, a warm thrum reverberating through the walls, up to the second floor and down beneath the ground. Malfoy steps into the parlour, which is decorated with gaudy, fuchsia furniture, and he looks through the large window out at the lawn, where the realtor awkwardly stands. “Come look,” he mutters, smirking slightly at Harry. Harry joins him at the window, and he looks out at the woman, at the sky, at the flowers planted along the front walk, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. But then the leaves of a dandelion curl themselves around the realtor’s thick ankle, and she screams shrilly enough to send the birds flying from the nearby trees when she comes close to falling on her next step. She hurries toward the dirt road, the clipboard like a security blanket, and tracks her surroundings vigilantly as if someone might sneak up on her. “These old, magical houses, they despise Muggles.” Harry can hear the smile in Malfoy’s voice, though he’s still watching the dandelion’s leaves relax into their usual state. It’s when Malfoy’s voice becomes faint that he realizes he’s now in a different room. “They torment them, waiting for release. Muggles, they think they’re haunted, and they are, in a way. Sometimes there are ghosts or poltergeists, too, but it’s the magic of the home they find most disturbing. They get freaked out easy. Magical homes are far too old and wise to break the statute, or anything like that. But if you don’t treat them right, they’ll torture you in little, unnoticeable ways that drive you mad — very, very slowly.” Harry finds Malfoy in the kitchen, tracing his finger along the perimeter of a massive farmhouse sink. The window above it looks out onto a green yard. Harry doesn’t say anything, because Malfoy’s practically in the middle of a monologue, not giving himself premature frown lines for once. Malfoy holds his hand beneath the faucet, which duly emits water until Malfoy withdraws his hand. He circles the room to get to Harry to flick his wet fingers at him as he brushes past. Some of the droplets hit Harry’s forehead and warm cheeks, others fleck his glasses, and he watches blearily as Malfoy disappears around the bend. He’s not exactly sure as to what his brain chemicals are reacting about Malfoy, but he is sure that he feels a swoop in his lower gut. Maybe it’s his arse in tartan. Harry looks upward at the ceiling when he hears footsteps above him, and he sets out for the stairs.

“What’s different about the way Muggles and wizards treat a house?” Harry asks, joining Malfoy in the master bedroom.

“You wouldn’t know, Potter, considering you treat yours like most Muggles do.”

“Do not.”

“Well, you’re an utter slob. That’s mistreatment. But at least you don’t try to install cables or interwebs and plumbing pipes and all that. Interferes with the magic.” Malfoy tilts his head to the side, his tone matter-of-fact.

“It’s cable. And Wi-Fi. You get on the Internet with Wi-Fi.”

“Shove off.”

Harry snorts. “You just go around buying these places, then?”

“And selling them, sometimes. There’s fixing up to do, occasionally, which I handle. I’m not stupid enough to let these homes slip back into Muggle hands.” Malfoy brushes his fingertip along the windowsill, rubbing it off when it comes back with a gray layer of dust.

“You gonna buy this place?” Harry squints at an unfilled picture frame on a dresser, occupied by a stock photo of a daisy in a meadow.

“Might.” Malfoy leaves the room again. Harry follows. Again.

“You wear a lot of Muggle clothes,” he comments, because he’s been meaning to bring it up, among all the other different aspects of Malfoy he’s noted. He certainly gets to look at him more often now, though, that he’s watching Zabini’s dreams and a live-action Malfoy at the Headquarters each day, so Malfoy’s appearance is at the forefront of his mind.

“How observant of you,” Malfoy says. Harry leans against the bathroom door, watching him meander about, testing the water in the sink, the bath, testing to see if the toilet works. Malfoy flushes the toilet with magic, of course. Harry would’ve just touched the handle. “Specific Muggles, Potter, are visionary geniuses when it comes to clothing. I can’t live my entire life in robes, no matter how nice the quality of the fabric, knowing that Berluti and Calvin Klein exist. Wizards are very behind the times on the advantages of cuts and tailoring to body type.” Harry doesn’t know or care what Ber-what-i is, and he thinks he recalls scarring images of Dudley running around once, stuffed only into Calvin Klein underwear, but he appreciates them, and the fact that Malfoy isn’t swallowed up in out-of-date robes. “Is that a satisfactory answer? Or should I throw in some anecdotes about loving Muggles and wanting to procreate with them?”

Harry shakes his head slightly, and his eyes track Malfoy as he squeezes out of the bathroom past Harry and heads for the stairs. “Nope. That’ll do.”

Outside, Malfoy’s shaking hands with the stout lady when Harry makes it onto the lawn.

“You’ve just made my day, Mr. Martin. You have no idea,” she gushes, handing her clipboard and a pen to Malfoy. After thirty seconds of confused pen-twirling, Harry takes the pen and clicks the button on the very end to extend the point. How does he not know that by now? Malfoy takes it back peevishly.

“I think I have the slightest idea,” he answers.

***

Draco is, as he always is after a done and dusted deal, in a fantastic mood, so much so that when he Apparates onto the front step of Grimmauld Place, and follows Potter inside, he nearly opts to spend voluntary time with him.

He has the deed for the Wigton house in his hand — the Muggle woman had been more than prepared for fork it over — and when the front door closes behind him, he’s left to stand directly beside Potter in the stuffy foyer. He drums his fingertips against his thigh, eyes uneasily flitting about Potter’s figure beside him, before he clears his throat. “You didn’t ruin the deal for me,” he says as he rubs at his chin.

Potter blinks, as if he’d forgotten Draco could speak, and spares him a glance and a quirk of his brows. “I didn’t, did I?”

“No. You didn’t.”

“I’m not the worst nanny ever, then.”

“I suppose not. I had a ruthless Russian governess at eight that you’d find difficult to beat.”

“Right.”

Another silence follows, and then, of course, Potter has to open his bloody mouth at the exact time as Draco.

“Did you want —“

“I’m just going to go —“

Potter chuckles, but Draco just feels like a floundering idiot. He momentarily panics, thinking he’ll never know what it was that Potter was going to ask — Did you want _what?_ Did you want _to never, ever take me on another house tour ever again because it was inconceivably boring and you lectured me far too much, and, by the way, your career is a complete, worthless joke, you ex-Death Eater bastard?_

But, then Potter says, “I was just gonna ask, er. Ask if you wanted tea.”

Draco feels like his lungs are collapsing, and he can see from the corner of his eye that Potter’s still smiling faintly at him, which is. No. Terrifying. Bad. Not good. “I’m going to put this somewhere safe,” he tells him vaguely and holds up the deed. It’s neither a yes nor a no, but it’s better than speaking over Potter again like a socially incompetent fool. Draco’s eyes flash to Potter without really looking at him, and then he starts up the stairs. His feet feel heavy, as if his shoes are a giant’s rather than his own, modest size 11.

He stops at the top of the stairs, listens to the kitchen door creak open and swing shut behind Potter. Then he resolutely strides into the guest room and wilts onto the bed, and dramatically, at that, because Pansy isn’t there to call him out on it.

Something sharp jabs him in the shoulder blade, though, mid-melodramatic sprawl, and he sits up, taking an unopened and now slightly crumped envelope from the sheets. He turns it over in his hands. His name is inscribed on it in dark ink, but it’s unmarked except for that. No seal, or anything Tilly sits in front of the wardrobe, ironing his socks — which Draco absolutely does not demand of her, but she claims to enjoy — and he holds up the unmarked envelope. “Tilly, what is this?”

She folds a black sock into a neat square before she casts a passing look over her shoulder at Draco. “It was here for Master Draco. I dids not want to touches it before Master came back.”

He licks his lips and puts the envelope down on his lap when he notices his hand trembling trying to hold it up. “You know that’s not what I’m asking, Til. Did you see who brought it? Was it an owl? Merlin forbid, an actual person?”

She shakes her head and returns to her ironing. Draco’s jaw drops, and he’s about to protest, but then Iggy appears with a pop beside her. “Dids Master Draco open his letter?” he inquires, then screeches when he turns to find Draco on the bed. “Oh, Master Draco! Dids you open the letter?”

Draco frowns. “You didn’t see what brought it?” He rubs his thumb over the bent corner, reads the scrawl of his name for the second time. He’s been trying not to think about how similar it looks to his mother’s writing, how it looks like what was written on every letter and sweets-filled care package he’d ever received at Hogwarts. Iggy doesn’t say anything, so Draco can only assume he shakes his head no, as he has eyes for nothing else right then as he slides his thumb under the mouth of the envelope to tear it open delicately.

***

It’s another hour before Draco makes the decision to go down and see Potter.

He’s clenching the letter between his fingers as he pads down the stairs and pushes open the kitchen door. Potter’s there, thankfully, but there are two cups of tea, and only one Potter. One is untouched, but no longer steaming. Draco willfully ignores it.

“There’s something you should see, Potter,” he says stiffly, and sits down beside Potter on the bench, as opposed to behind the cup Potter had set opposite to him. He places the letter onto the table. When Potter doesn’t touch it and stares at Draco in confusion, he slides it toward him insistently. “Go on.” Potter looks at the folded parchment and picks it up, unfolding it sensitively despite his calloused, knobby fingers. He reads.

“When did you get this?” he asks Draco and lays the letter back down on the table.

“It was waiting for me when we got back. Iggy and Tilly say they don’t know who brought it. They didn’t see anyone.”

Potter’s eyes turn fiery. “Why didn’t you show it to me straightaway?”

Draco gives Potter a sour smile. “I had to think, Potter, about whether I’d show it to you or hide it away and keep it to myself forever. The latter was tempting.”

“You agreed. Said you’d show me if you received anything.” Potter’s voice is hard, his teeth are set.

“I did. Damn me for having possessive, human instincts, hm?”

Potter scoffs and rises from the bench. “Yeah. We need to go to Headquarters.” He casts a protective orb around the letter. Draco’s fingers twitch. He doesn’t move, watches his own fingers clench into a fist on the table. “Malfoy, get up.” Draco twists his hand around — his knuckles are splotchy with pink and white around the bones, blue and purple with spidery veins — and then rests his chin against his fist. There’s something exhausting and infuriating about letting go of a piece of his mother, of himself, to Potter, and having him go top-Auror at it like a Crup at a hog’s bone. “Draco, for _fuck’s_ sake.”

Draco rolls his eyes and gracefully hops to his feet. He strolls to where Potter awaits him like a petulant child or a bad-tempered parent, stops inches away from him, and looks him directly in his eyes. “Please don’t call me that,” he whispers, digging the tip of his wand right into the very middle of Potter’s lower stomach. He sheathes his wand in the sleeve of his blazer and draws away from him, then walks ahead of Potter into the parlour. He stands in front of the fireplace, arms folded tightly over his chest, his foot tapping impatiently against the floor. It takes Potter actual minutes to join him, the orb-encased letter floating after him.

“Had to alert Robards and some others. Sorry.”

Draco swallows thickly. His stomach twists itself into a very elaborate knot. “Was Pansy included in ‘some others’?” he asks tensely. She can read him like a book — like the fucking Beginner’s Guide to Transfiguration, at that. And she’s a fast reader.

“Thought you could use someone.”

“Is that a yes?”

Potter doesn’t answer, and Draco exhales through his teeth. He picks up a handful of Floo powder from Potter’s disgustingly tacky golden urn.

*** 

“Draco, talk to me.”

“You’re not even on this case. Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be shagging Clemence Creasey on your off time? Or Weasley?”

Pansy hushes Draco violently, her eyes darting to the door of the meeting room in which the Aurors actually on Draco’s father’s case are convening. “Git,” she whispers as she steps closer to him. He’s sitting at Susan’s desk, the most grounding spot for him in the Auror Headquarters, organizing Susan's inkwells in all colors of the rainbow except red. Draco will have to fix that. “You’ve got the Head Auror in there, Draco. Tell me what happened. Was the letter from your mother?” She drums her fingernails against the desk. They’re yellow now. “I’ll find out one way or another, but I’d like to hear it from you first. Why are you so jumpy, anyway? I thought you’d be begging to have heard something from her.”

Draco sighs and slumps back against the chair, his legs spread, his arms on the armrests, and his head lolled back. “I —“ 

The door to the meeting room bursts open, and Robards appears. “Malfoy, get in here.”

Draco scrambles out of the chair at light speed. He’s a decent secretary, on friendly speaking terms with everyone at Headquarters… except for the Head Auror. He’s a towering, intimidating, _attractive_ older man. Draco shrugs innocently at Pansy and saunters through the open door past Robards.

“If you want to speak to him, Parkinson, you’ll have to wait,” Draco hears Robards say behind him before the door closes. She’s been good in recent years at reining in her emotions even as a Metamorphmagus, but he can still picture her irises turning a demonic red hue, like in sixth year when he’d refused to tell her about the Vanishing Cabinet but she’d sensed something was wrong.

“Why’s it so bloody dark in here?” Draco mutters, because there are several people huddled around the table he knows lies in the middle of the room, yet he can’t distinguish a single face. He jumps when Robards touches the small of his back and guides him closer to the table, and, as if on cue, the epicenter of the table begins to glow green. It’s the letter, floating still in the protective orb, but covered by smears of neon green and blue. Draco doesn’t understand. Potter’s across the table from him, he notices, his face lit up by the glow. Other Aurors, whose faces Draco hasn’t bothered to learn for longer than it takes to send a memo to their cubicles, border him. 

“Draco, this is Lisa, from the Magical Evidence Analysis Department,” Robards says as he nods toward a witch to Potter’s right. Draco thinks he remembers seeing her face at some point during the Azkaban map debacle. 

Lisa clears her throat. “You said, Mr. Malfoy, that you recognized the penmanship in the letter as your mother’s?”

Draco nods.

“Well. We weren’t able to identify a magical signature — or, in fact, associate any wand with the evidence. The parchment itself is non-magical, and presumably was delivered by hand or by owl, so we can’t trace its to its origin. It’s clear that it has been tampered with, however. After close study of the physical qualities of the evidence, as well, it would be reasonable to assume a Doubling Charm was used in some manner or another — possibly to replicate your mother’s handwriting,” Lisa explains. “Without an identified wand, though, we’re finding it difficult to give an explanation for the powerful magic used to cast the Gemino Curse.” Draco bites his lip when she breaks eye contact for the first time to look at Robards. “Would you mind if we —?”

Draco frowns, but Robards touches the small of his back again. “Your wand, Draco.”

“Oh. Yes.” He feels his neck go warm, but he slips his wand from his sleeve and hands it to Robards, who casts the Reverse Spell on it. It was a mere cleaning spell, of course. Draco’s eyes roll to look at Potter snidely, but Potter doesn’t meet his gaze.

“Very well,” Robards says, twirling Draco’s wand between his fingers. “You’ll continue analysis, yes, Lisa?” He blinks expectantly at the witch, who nods curtly. Her, along with a few other wizards in white robes, file out of the room, taking Draco’s letter with them, and Robards brightens the room with a flick of Draco’s wand before he returns it to him. Draco frowns. That was kind of hot. Not quite as flashy as when Potter had dueled Voldemort with Draco’s wand, but — “With that as a basis, we should discuss the contents of this falsified letter.”

The word ‘falsified’ makes Draco twitch. He drags out a chair from the table and sits in it. There’s a dozen chairs, yet everyone is hovering on their feet. It’s comical.

“Potter?” Robards says. Draco’s fingers clench around the arms of the chair in preparation. Potter clears his throat, looks at Draco with mild apology, before he unfolds what Draco assumes is a transcription of his mother’s message.

“’Dearest Draco,’” Potter reads. Draco smiles bitterly and lays his head back so he can watch Potter narrate from beneath his eyelashes. “‘I’m sorry I haven’t reached out sooner. I wanted to wait until your father and I were safe, until it would be safe to reach out to you. It took some time, as your father is weak, not at his best, and, unfortunately, darling, I don’t have reason to believe he’ll be getting better any time soon. I have so much I want to tell you and explain to you that I can’t fathom writing it all down. Please meet me at the Hog’s Head tomorrow evening, and I’ll take us somewhere safe to chat. All my love, always, your mother.’”

Draco gives Potter a round of applause, startling a few of the Aurors standing close by. So much for Constant Vigilance, he thinks. “Very nice, Potter. A grand tribute to my last memory of her. Slightly less effeminate and teary than I recall her being, but for all I know, this wasn’t even from my mother, so you could be perfectly accurate.” He crosses his legs and laces his fingers together over his upper knee. “For one, she would never ask me to meet her at the Hog’s Head. She loathes that dump.”

Robards turns toward him. “So you would agree with the hypothesis that this letter isn’t from your mother?”

Draco shrugs, eyes cast down. “If the analytics don’t lie, I don’t see how it could be. It’s her handwriting, I’m sure of it. But I would imagine that there are ways to get around that… Like the Doubling Charm.”

The Aurors around him ruminate over this until one — Goldstein, Draco thinks — speaks up. “Could it just be someone messing with Malfoy? With us?” he suggests. “I was — I was still in training when the Malfoys’ house arrest ended, but everyone knew about it, and about the Howlers they got and the gossip in the Prophet and the public hate crimes against them that followed that. Could this just be a repeat of that? Someone trying to lure him out?”

Potter, of course, has to refute. “But why now? Malfoy’s hardly ever in the public eye. Why would anyone target him?”

Michael Corner pitches in, “most of the public likes to jump at the idea that Lucius is behind every petty _and_ capital offense ever since his escape. The attack on the Wizarding pre-school last week was bad enough to merit some sort of hostile response.”

“Everyone I know tells me the Aurors’ve been useless with the Lucius Malfoy case, that we’re getting nowhere with it,” Goldstein says. “‘Course I can’t let anything on about what we know or what we don’t, so there’s a bunch of bloody mistrust floatin’ around.”

“Taking matters into their own hands,” Robards muses quietly. Draco shifts in his seat. A beat later, “Potter, who have you divulged your address to?”

Potter shrugs. “Malfoy, Parkinson, Creasey… And everyone else I’ve told, I trust completely.”

Malfoy rolls his eyes. “Mr. Head Auror Robards, sir,” he starts blankly, “if you don’t think Pansy Parkinson is trustworthy —“

Robards shakes his head. “No, no. I’m confident that Parkinson and Creasey have nothing to do with this,” he says. Potter looks suspicious, and it makes Draco want to laugh his head off. He loves Pansy, and Clemence is a right dolt, but he’s very hard to dislike to the degree that Potter does. Perhaps Draco should snog him more often for this very reason. “We can be relatively confident, then, in assuming the letter was delivered to Draco by owl, and the perpetrator did not enter Potter’s home. It remains a safe zone, unlike Malfoy Manor in Wiltshire, which we’re still considering a crime scene post-disappearance of Lucius Malfoy, but also a publicly known location.” Robards points at Potter across the table. “Malfoy’s fine at your place. I want you closely tracking your owl post, Potter.” Then he eyes Potter and Draco in succession. “You two can go.”

“What?” Potter deadpans. “There’s so much left to talk about —“

“None of which is your concern, Potter, on this case.” Robards turns toward Draco when he’s rising from his chair. “We’ll do everything we can, Draco, to find out more about this letter and who is behind it. As… as well as your father, of course. Until further notice, I would advise you to remain under Potter’s charge.” 

Draco sighs theatrically, thumbs slotting into the pockets of his trousers. “Very well, Mr. Head Auror, sir. Thank you for your service.” He meets Robards’ eyes, briefly scans the rest of the meeting room, and then he’s on his way out. He hears Potter protest, but his dejected footsteps nevertheless follow Draco. 

Pansy and Potter both assault him once the door to the meeting room closes.

“ _Mr._ Fucking _Head Auror, sir?_ _Service?_ What the hell?” Potter mutters, sounding revolted, which means Draco has done one thing successfully. 

“I respect my superiors, Potter,” Draco says.

“Are you going to fucking tell me what the cunting fuck’s going on?” Pansy asks heatedly when she springs up from behind Susan’s desk like she’s been waiting to pounce. One step forward, one step back. He’s failed to evade Pansy’s incessant prying. 

“Language, Parkinson,” whispers Potter. “We’re in the workplace.” Draco, much to his own surprise, has to bite both his upper and lower lip in an effort not to smirk.

Pansy directs a now-red fingernail at Potter. “You, shut up.” Then she looks at Draco like she could bite off his head, digging her finger into his sternum. “You, talk.” 

“A fake Narcissa owled Malfoy a letter pasted together using the Gemino Curse,” Potter sighs and slumps against Susan’s cubicle. “Just a stupid ruse. Also, by orders of Mr. Head Auror, Malfoy might as well become a Secret Keeper —“

Pansy’s fingers are clenched midair, her square jaw hardened, her glare fixated on Draco as she listens to Potter prattle despite himself. “Shut your mouth, shut it,” she interrupts once what she’s heard is adequate. The furrow between her darkly lined brows and the firm purse of her lips soften, almost to the point that she looks unrecognizably different. Pansy curls her fingers around Draco’s wrists. “Is that true? Some bastard’s messing with you? I know how you’ve been feeling about your parents, babe, and I’ll kill the bastard, I swear. I can’t make threats like that around Robards without being put on probation, Draco, but I swear to Merlin’s grave, I’ll kill…”

Draco’s stunned she doesn’t go on for longer. He chuckles, unfeeling, and Pansy’s fingers clench around his wrists.

“Why aren’t you upset?” she asks plainly. She squints at Potter, but her attention swallows Draco whole momentarily. “You thought it was real, didn’t you? The letter from your mother? So why aren’t you upset?”

Draco avoids her eyes and tugs at the collar of his shirt, even with Pansy’s fingers locked on his arm like a bracelet. “I’m just not bothered, Pans. I’m fine.”

She gives him that look; the one where Draco can hardly see anything but the whites of Pansy’s eyes, her dark eyelashes, eyebrows, and pupils all blending into one as she peers up at him stubbornly. “It’s not like you to not be upset about something like this.”

“Really, Pansy. Stop reading into this. I’m fine.” Draco snorts uneasily and wrenches his arms out of her grip. It’s a mistake, because that ends up being quite the struggle, and he’s left with red welts on both wrists. “Can we please leave? We’ve reported the stupid letter. The air down here is vile, and I’m already forced to inhale it every single day that I slave away organizing the lives of wayward law enforcement officials whose only carnal desires are to fuck one another, ‘kill bad guys,’ and neglect proper bookkeeping. Whose idea was it to build the headquarters of our governing body completely underground, anyway? The enchanted windows do nothing for us. Their enchanted ‘sea breeze’ smells like the scented chemicals Muggles use in their lavatories.”

All of the sympathetic softness in Pansy’s face has run its course. “Potter, he’s up to something.”

“Don’t I know it.”


	9. Chapter 9

If there’s anything that Harry has come to learn about Malfoy since his move into Grimmauld Place, it’s that he’s a creature of habit. At the Auror Headquarters, Malfoy does Susan’s job like he’s been there for years, grown up with the Aurors-in-training the same way Susan had with Harry’s group of seventh and returning eighth years who had graduated and qualified for the Auror programme together. On the bulletin board filled with photographs of Lucius Malfoy’s face and shots of his supposed, white-haired silhouette, Malfoy has pinned a picture of the new baby Bones, looking small and pink with a tuft of ginger hair in Susan’s arms. And when they’re not at the Headquarters, Malfoy drags him regularly to look at magical homes in the arse crack of nowhere. He still spends quite a bit of time alone in the guest room, whether it’s by himself or with Parkinson, but Harry believes that he’s stumbled upon another pattern in Malfoy’s routine — allowing himself to sit down to tea once a week with Harry. He has Parkinson to thank for that. It only lasts, of course, until Malfoy storms out of the kitchen for one reason or another, but the point is that Harry is forced to acknowledge it — that it is possible to wiggle his way into Malfoy’s life, if he does it with respect to his clear-cut routines and schedules. He knows that now. And, because he’s Harry Potter, and this isn’t a life-threatening situation but more so a predicament of his ambivalent, frustrated dick, he doesn’t do a thing about it, hesitant to pluck the delicate, unstable trapeze him and Malfoy are balancing on. It’s more than just the trapeze, though. In Harry’s mind, there are several of Aunt Petunia’s expensive china vases piled on top of one another on the trapeze, and then on top of those vases are Kreacher, Iggy, and Tilly, holding up the weights of Harry and Malfoy. And if Harry so much as breathed wrong, they will all fall. The china vases will shatter, too, but that’s not what he cares about.

Robards continues to extend Malfoy’s stay, too, like it’s some kind of sick joke to him. Harry’s dick may want Malfoy to stay, and his subconscious — or whatever controls his dreams — wouldn’t mind it, either, but the rest of him, well… He has a good thing going with Danica. Malfoy ends up being a nuisance even on the days when the forecast for his mood looks partly-sunny. If only he didn’t look ridiculously fit in his bespoke Muggle clothes, stand or sit ridiculously close to Harry whenever given the chance — though he seems to be able to keep his head on straight when it’s anyone other than Malfoy — or sneer at Harry while he’s jeering at him in the maddening way that transports him through a wormhole back to Hogwarts. The evening that they’d reported the letter, Malfoy hadn’t even seemed disconcerted by his indefinite sentence to Grimmauld Place. It’s possible he’s enjoying the obtrusive, Malfoy-shaped dent he’s made in Harry’s life and his brain. As far as Harry knows, Malfoy’s not aware of Zabini’s memories, and they’re on the same terms they’ve always been; two planets in orbit, crashing together and burning more often than not, Harry perhaps more aware of Malfoy than vice versa, but still on separate elliptical tracks around the sun with no interest in intertwining.

*** 

“Please remind me once more why I’m here, just so I don’t combust out of boredom when I realize for the third time this hour that this is a complete waste of time.”

Pansy sighs, strapping the leather kneepad tightly around her leg. They’re in the sparsely-populated spectator seating at a Ministry-owned, Unplottable Quidditch pitch outside of London. Draco’s not surprised. Why the hell anyone would come to watch the games is beyond him. Pansy says it’s not for entertainment, but for team-building amongst the players themselves. Across the various levels of the Ministry, a recreational Quidditch league has formed in the last decade, with several amateur teams in each Department competing in fall and spring tournaments. They call it the ‘Interdepartmental Quidditch Tournament,’ which is... Original. The winning Department receives bragging rights, cheap badges to signify their superiority that will not, in fact, violate their dress code for a period of two weeks until they once again become unsanctioned, and as a more recent development thanks to Granger’s meddling, a monetary prize from the office of the Minister himself to donate to a charity of their choice. She’s managed to make a tournament of bumbling Ministry officials who could’ve only dreamed of making their House teams at Hogwarts slightly less pointless, for which Draco commends her. “Because Potter’s here, and you’re Potter’s responsibility. And as much as everyone at the Office adores you, babe, they wouldn’t trade in their fieldwork to be your nanny. Nobody but me would. And I’m here, too, so you simply have to be. Plus, you’re technically part of Law Enforcement, so you’re getting paid to sit and watch us play. Too bad all the teams are full.”

“They don’t pay me, Pansy.” Draco leans over to tie up the laces on her shoe. “That’s another mystery to me. Why you’re here. I’d imagine you’re rubbish at Quidditch, and that’s why you’ve never told me you’re part of this ludicrous league?” 

Pansy licks her lips, standing up straight on the bench to allow Draco to fasten her other kneepad. “The games are once a month, sometimes every other month. I hardly remember myself.” She peers over her shoulder at her motley team, all clad in blue robes like her. The cluster of red floating nearby is composed of Magical Games and Sports workers. Draco reckons very few of them actually play sports — aside from the beefy Marcus Flint doppelganger — and that their talents are confined mainly to administerial duties. “I made a bloody good Beater, Draco. I concussed three blokes from Accidents and Catastrophes at our last game. They just rotated the positions, so that’s why I’m a Chaser now.” 

“Is Potter not Seeking?”

“No, he is. He always is. And Weasley’s still Keeper. And —“

“So they ‘rotated’ just you.”

“No, Draco.”

“I don’t think strengthening relations between the Ministry and St. Mungo’s is the goal of the Beater position.” Draco snorts. “Besides, you’re only in it ‘cos you like the way Our King Weasley looks in Quidditch garb. Don’t worry. I’m sure your vantage point as a Chaser will be almost as good as when you were a Beater.” Draco must have hit a nerve with that comment, because just as he follows her gaze to where Potter and Weasley are hovering side by side on their brooms, he receives a very purposeful toe to the chest. Draco falls back against the bench and hugs his chest defensively. “That was rude, Pans. You know I have a weak respiratory system.”

“You don’t. You’re just a pussy,” she grumbles, picking up her broom. Draco tries to suppress his smirk as she slings her leg over her broom and takes a shaky liftoff, and only gives Pansy an innocent wave as she glares at him over her shoulder. He’s left to sit with the remaining spectators, who include a middle-aged witch named Helen who is the Head of Event Catering for Magical Games and Sports. Draco has half a mind to complain to her about the abominable imitation of bratwurst that was served at the last World Cup in Germany, but he’s an upstanding citizen at a workplace function, and he must represent the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to the best of his ability with dignity and poise. He’s smiling at his own, personal joke when he catches Potter’s eye, which prompts the smile to drop from his face. Draco shifts his feet and glances a few feet to Potter’s left, where Pansy has just smacked Weasley upside the head and knocked his Keeper’s helmet right off. Of course, Potter dives to catch it before it can plummet a hundred feet to the ground, and hands it to Weasley. Draco turns absently toward Helen, as if she’s just said something remarkably interesting in the conversation he’s totally been engaged in this whole time, thanks, Potter, but the moment she mentions deriving inspiration from American teams’ custom of serving something called ‘hot dogs,’ he tunes out. When his gaze moves back to the field, though, Potter’s attention is elsewhere.

After twenty minutes of play and watching the Snitch buzz right past the tail of Potter’s broom twice — either he’s sleeping upright or Pansy mistook Potter for one of the concussed blokes from Magical Accidents and Catastrophes — Draco is livid. Pansy is a worthless Chaser. Clemence Creasey is Beating, but he has arms like spaghetti noodles. Five minutes in, however, Pansy has managed to acquire Creasey’s bat in an unofficial trade of positions. Weasley is remarkably mediocre at guarding the goal posts, and that’s the best Draco can say for the Department’s sad excuse for a team. It’s at the twenty-minute mark that Pansy knocks out Magical Games and Sports’ Seeker. She gets so close to him that it’s a wonder it was actually the Bludger that took him out and not her bat, but Draco is skeptical, and the referee is a wizard wearing glasses with lenses thicker than Potter’s, so of course she isn’t fouled. But from where Draco sits, he can see the Seeker’s limp form on the ground, and no amount of frantic Episkeys from the Healer trainees flocked around him can stop the flow of blood from his nose. At least the uniform robes are red. Potter, the ever-wise team captain, calls a time out, though Draco thinks there’s already a de facto one in place, considering the plight of the bleeding player on the ground.

Draco gets up, steps over Helen and her friend, and leaps down from bench to bench until he reaches the front row of the spectator seating. “Pansy!” he shouts, waving his arms wildly. He can tell she tries to ignore him, but then Weasley points him out to her, and she’s forced to acknowledge his presence. She flies over to him, and finally Draco can rest his tired arms. Her fingernails are a fiery red color. Draco decides to try and tread lightly rather than attack her terrible sportsmanship instantly. “Your team is eighty points down and playing like a big, fat load of Hippogriff’s shite,” he says as he places his hands on his hips and casts a wary look at Helen over his shoulder. “I’m embarrassed to be associated with you. With all of you.”

Pansy blows her blunt fringe out of her face. “I know, I know. Potter’s blinder than usual today. I had to do something about their bloody Seeker or we’d have lost way too soon,” she says, clenching her fingers around her broomstick handle. “Shame. He’s usually good.” 

“At least Weasley’s on point.”

“Yes,” Pansy agrees straightaway, and then, “wait, what? No. Shut up, Draco.”

He flashes her a faint smile and shakes his head. They watch as the referee flies up to Potter, and the expression that washes over his face takes Draco back to when Ravenclaw defeated Gryffindor not by a mile but by a fucking circumnavigation of the world in their first year. 

“Game’s off,” Potter calls to Pansy. Weasley groans and takes a dramatic dip off his broom that leaves him dangling from it by both hands. “They don’t have a reserve player.”

Pansy’s eyes glow a dull sort of red, and she hops back onto the broom to speed over to Potter. Draco knows she’s competitive, and she always has been, but he can’t say he could’ve foreseen her applying said competitiveness to a game of recreational Quidditch, where her team’s only saving grace seems to be having Potter as Seeker, but even that hasn’t worked out so great. Draco’s in the midst of reimagining their Hogwarts years if Pansy had been a tyrannical Slytherin Quidditch team captain when his vision is swallowed up by a sea of red.

It’s just scratchy, red polyester, though, and Draco bats it away from his face, nearly knocked off balance from the bench he’s standing on when he finds Weasley, Potter, and Pansy all crowding his view.

“Congrats, Draco. You’ve made the team. You’re subbing in for Doyle,” Pansy says.

“This is red,” says Draco, his nose wrinkling as the red robes crinkle between his fingers.

“Obviously. The bloke who got knocked out wasn’t on our team,” huffs Pansy. 

Weasley squints at her when she doesn’t take ownership of her own deed, but when he turns his eyes on Draco, they’re pleading. “Come on, Malfoy. We’ll lose by default if you don’t. Plus, it’s okay if you suck! You’ll help us win.”

Draco grimaces and looks down the line to Potter, who hasn’t said a word. Years ago, if there was something he didn’t want to do, he’d have just said ‘no.’ He was fantastic at saying ‘no.’ He has a sneaking suspicion that it was Blaise who’d worn him down. Any time Draco had ever told Blaise ‘no,’ it’d always meant ‘yes,’ and even sometimes ‘yes, please.’ “Any input, Potter, before I inevitably give into your teammates’ pressuring?”

Potter clears his throat, then shrugs passively. “Just hope you’re not scared, Malfoy.”

Weasley laughs, and Draco notices Pansy’s fingernails turn bright yellow at the terrible, wheezing sound of it. Potter smiles at him unabashedly, and Draco returns it, however bitter the twist of his own lips is. “Very funny.” He proceeds to shrug into the red robes to match the Magical Games and Sports team. “Get me a fucking broom.”

After Pansy’s secured all of Draco’s protective gear, he mounts the Ministry-funded, relatively-new Nimbus he’s given. Draco can’t remember the last time he rode a broom, and Pansy’s shoddy broomwork was a hell of lot funnier when he didn’t expect to have to ride one himself. He nods uncomfortable greetings to his temporary teammates, all whilst recalling how — despite numerous Cushioning Charms — brooms had never failed in their continuous effort to convey how it felt to be split open in half, and not in the good way. The referee has Draco sign a release contract for any on-site injuries he may incur, which is promising, and then attempts to lecture Draco on the rules of the game. Draco has to wave him off (he knows how the fucking game works) while attempting to control his temper and not fall off the broom. When the balls are finally released to resume the game, and Draco is trying to release his own damn balls by discreetly picking at his wedgie, Potter flies up beside him. Draco’s jaw clenches and he rolls his eyes over to him, blunt nails digging into the wood of his broom rather than his crotch.

“Brings back memories, doesn’t it?” says Potter, like a nostalgic idiot.

“You know, up until this very moment, I thought you were a shitty team captain, and I don’t think you’ve looked for the Snitch once this entire game. I’d also expected the Aurors to be better at this, considering you lot have the only job that actually demands physical fitness. But you really secured yourself the win, Potter, by dragging me into things, so congratulations. I’m glad you realized that I was never genuinely good at the game, I just pretended to be because I had a great racing broom. And the fact that I haven’t ridden one in years isn’t doing me any favors.”

“That… managed to be both offensive and self-deprecating, Malfoy. I think you’re improving at your people skills.” 

“And I think you’re getting worse. If you wanted me to hate you, you could’ve just asked, rather than going out of your way to torture me.”

Potter cocks his head to the side humorously. “Were we on good terms before that I was unaware of?”

Draco rolls his eyes and refuses to respond. The wind is blowing Potter’s robes flush to his strong chest and his hair all over the place.

“I don’t think it was just your broom, though. You also had conviction, Malfoy.” Potter watches him, and Draco resists the urge to pick at his wedgie. He exhales deeply through his nose.

“And team pride.” He frowns as he watches a Chaser on his own team do the very opposite as she’s chased by Pansy and her bat. From the corner of his eye, he  thinks he catches a glint of gold reflecting the sunlight. A subtle glance proves him correct, and like hell is he going to go down without a fight. While Potter is still formulating a response, Draco tightens his fingers around the shaft of the broom and takes a nosedive after the Snitch. “Potter, you tit! Stop arsing around!” echoes Pansy’s voice from somewhere above. It becomes exhilirating very quickly, Draco realizes, as he keeps his eyes on the Snitch, knowing that Potter is somewhere behind him, gaining on him. He’d also forgotten how hard Seeking was on the thighs. Potter comes into view too quickly for his liking — Draco spots him about ten feet below himself. “Took you long enough,” he calls, though he’s unsure if his voice gets lost on the wind. “Enjoying your view, Potter?”

“You could say that.” Potter flies up beside him, scaring Draco halfway to his grave, though he wouldn’t admit to it nor does he visibly flinch. He thinks Pansy is about as reliable as Gilderoy Lockhart when she claims he’s a poor actor. “Come on, Malfoy. Give it up. If we win, I’ll make sure of it thay the money goes to the Post-War Foundation for the Troubled Children of Ex-Death Eaters.” There’s a shit-eating grin on Potter’s face when Draco’s eyes flicker to him, and he almost regrets not getting in the last word when the Snitch swerves abruptly and Draco curves after it. Potter follows without strain, though.

Draco makes a point of snorting dramatically. “Save your galleons, Potter. The Troubled don’t need them. My team, from the — the — I forget the Department, but that’s beside the point. We’ve bonded rather quickly, you see, and because we’re clearly on track for the top, I’ve managed to convince them that our prize money will go to the Foundation for Getting Harry Potter Some Fucking Balls.” It’s not his best retort, because Potter gets a kick out of it, but it distracts him long enough for Draco to speed about a broom’s length ahead of him. He loses sight of the Snitch and brakes abruptly. Draco only has a second to be frustrated, though, because Potter comes sailing into Draco at full speed and sends him keeling right over the edge of his broom, plummeting toward the Earth. He lets out an embarrassingly frightful shout, even though he could easily manage a competent Arresto Momentum, and to top it all off, it ends up being Weasley that swoops down and catches Draco by the ankle.

“Suicide isn’t the answer, Malf — oh, fuck!” Weasley swears above him, because Draco’s team has managed to score during Weasley’s absence from the goal posts, and several times at that. All of Draco’s blood is rushing to his head as he’s suspended upside down, he’s a bit dizzy, and his teammates are cheering, some shouting his name, others shouting rather derogatory Death Eater-related nicknames, but he doesn’t mind.

“Weasley, move up a couple feet and just a bit to your left, would you?” Draco croaks through the robes flapping about his face, and Weasley, still distracted by his fumble, mumbles, “oh, yeah, sure,” and then Draco’s able to swing his bodyweight enough to grab hold of the Snitch, which had been hovering by the tail end of Weasley’s broom for several seconds. He curls his fingers around the cool metal, watches with a dazed smirk as its fluttering wings relax into its sides, and laughs helplessly. When Draco’s team abruptly erupts into a second round of hoots and cheers, and Weasley looks down to find him in a daze, but sneering victoriously, he groans.

“Bloody hell, Malfoy,” he grumbles, and then lets go of his ankle.

Draco’s cackling too hard to care, and he unsheaths his wand from his sleeve to hastily cast the slowing charm, and he thinks it works, because his skull is still intact and he can feel his toes, but it turns out it’s not grass he’s laying on, because he’s landed in Clemence Creasey’s arms. His vision slowly clears of spots and colors as his blood redistributes itself around his body, and when Clemence’s face comes into view, Draco snorts breathily. Merlin knows how long Clemence has been waiting on the ground below Draco.

“You can’t be fucking serious,” Draco mutters.

“That could’ve been bad. Nice one, though, blondie.” Creasey nods at the Snitch in Draco’s hand and grins. Why is he still in his arms? Clemence luckily releases him steadily onto his feet when Draco starts to wriggle. He squints at him.

“You lost, though, Clemence,” says Draco.

“What?” He’s clearly confused.

Pansy and Potter touch down by the two of them just as the red team falls upon Draco, crowding him on all sides in a sweaty mess of testosterone and excitement as they hug him and clap him on the back. Draco’s fake smile isn’t at its most convincing during this scene. The team retreats eventually, though, advancing toward the locker rooms, as their captain, the bulky not-Marcus Flint, smugly points a finger in Potter’s direction. “Drinks on Potter!” he shouts, then beats his chest while ululating in a manner Draco finds rather bestial, running backwards until he joins his team in the locker rooms. Draco removes his red robes, drenched in residual sweat, and turns to face Potter and Pansy.

“If you’d watched the Snitch and not him, we wouldn’t be in this mess,” Pansy is griping as she throws weak punches at Potter’s chest. They’re intentionally weak — she can hit much harder. Potter is taking little backward steps, palms out in surrender, looking like he’s trying to train an unruly Crup. Pansy turns toward Draco and sighs. “It’s our first loss this season. There’s still hope.” She holds out her hand for Draco to take. “Shall we?”

“Shall we what?” He frowns. He hadn’t dressed expecting to play Quidditch that day, and his favorite shirt is damp and chafing him, not to mention what his trousers are doing. He reluctantly entwines his fingers with Pansy’s.

“It’s a tradition. The loser buys everyone a round at this Muggle pub down the road.” Pansy then raises her voice as she guides Draco the way the other team had gone. “I’m not spending a single knut, though. Potter’s sorry arse is fronting the whole thing.”

“I can’t go out like this, Pans. And I’ve wasted enough time today already.”

“Babe. You’ll shower, wear something of mine. You’ll come out for an hour. If you hate it after that, I promise I’ll take you to Potter’s, and even stay there with you ‘til he gets back.”

“Yeah? And warm me up some milk? Read me Babbitty Rabbitty?” Draco smiles wryly. Then he actually digests Pansy’s words. “‘Wear something of yours’? Pansy, nothing you own is more than a scrap of fabric. What makes you think I won’t look ridiculous in them, much less actually fit into them?”

Pansy waves him off. She marches into the midst of the Magical Games and Sports players, opens up her locker, and proceeds to undress. Draco’s not sure if the witches on the team have already finished washing up, or if there’s a separate locker room for them, but he doesn’t bother to ask. The wandering eyes of the men shedding their Quidditch gear answer that for him. He admires Pansy, he does, but he doesn’t think he could live in her shoes for even a day. She hands Draco a towel once she’s fully nude, smiles, and then heads for the showers. Draco sinks down onto a bench and scrubs his hand over his face.

“Perverts,” he says to the room, and as if on command, all eyes whip away from Pansy’s arse to mind their own business. Draco rolls his eyes. He waits awhile to head into the showers himself, once the locker rooms have emptied, and when he resurfaces, towel wrapped tightly around his waist, Potter and Weasley have only just arrived, and Pansy is dressed from the waist up, sporting only a thong below, and applying thick streaks of black kohl to her eyes in front of a smudged mirror. Draco’s eyes flicker over Potter and Weasley briefly, and he sits down on the bench beside Pansy.

“That’s for you,” she says as she smudges the dark pigment around her eye. She looks like a panda when she turns to face him with only one eye done and points at the assemblage of clothes she’s folded into a pile on the bench. Draco feels mildly ill, but if there’s one thing he dislikes more than ugly, ill-fitting, or ridiculous clothes, it’s unclean clothes. He thinks of Potter’s bedroom floor. 

It’s a pair of loose, faded, high-waisted blue jeans and one of Pansy’s white, thin tanktops that she’d bought after she’d first pierced her nipple. Not wanting to start a scene until he absolutely has to, Draco tugs on the jeans and the top. When he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror, though, it’s enough to merit a scene. The jeans fit, though ankles are bare and all of his anatomy feels like it’s on display.

“Pansy.”

“What?” She’s wrinkling her pert nose in the mirror as she morphs the color of her lips to a deep purple. When she catches a glimpse of him through the mirror, she whirls around and gives him an appreciative once-over. “Shit, babe. You should dress this camp more often.”

“It’s not camp, they’re just too small. And that’s exactly what I didn’t want you to say,” he grumbles. His arms feel strangely naked, and his Dark Mark is on full display. The skin of his arms is nearly white — it hasn’t seen sun in years. When he catches Potter staring in his vague direction, he strides over to him, forearm facing forward. Fuck him for even looking at it when he should be well aware of how Draco has reformed. “Want a closer look, huh, Potter? All you have to do is ask.” 

Potter’s face tinges a pale red, but his expression is closed off. He touches his hand lightly to Draco’s chest to push him back just an inch or so. “Relax, Malfoy. Nobody gives a fuck.”

Weasley’s face betrays him, though, his eyes bulging. “Merlin’s blistery left foot, is it moving?” he breathes.

Draco casts a momentarily panicked glance at his arm to check if the serpent is, in fact, slithering, but no, Weasley’s just an idiot. He smiles sarcastically and tries to decide between insulting Weasley on his vision or the size of his pea brain when he spots it. A green jumper, embroidered with a massive, white letter ‘R’, hanging off a hook in Weasley’s locker. “Are you really wearing that, Weasley?”

Weasley blinks, then follows Draco’s gaze to the jumper in his locker. Then he smiles in an endearingly embarrassing way. Draco thinks Pansy’s status as a Weasley-sympathizer is beginning to affect him more than he knows. “Nah. My mum came to our last game before Christmas, when we actually won.” He glares playfully at Potter, who sheepishly avoids his eyes. “Early Christmas present. I’ve stashed it away here ‘cos I’ve seven more at home, and at least three more at the Burrow.”

Draco settles his hands on his hips. “Is it clean?”

“Mum’s very strict about laundry.”

“That’s a yes, then,” says Draco. “Give it to me, Weasley. I’m borrowing it. Just for tonight.” When Weasley looks bewildered, then hesitant, Draco’s eyes harden. “You can’t let me go out looking like this. Plus, you almost killed me out there. You owe me.”

Weasley succumbs. Draco would’ve kept pestering him, but it happens sooner than he would’ve thought. “I also almost saved your life out there,” he points out as he tosses the jumper to Draco.

“But you didn’t.” He shrugs into Weasley’s jumper and turns away. It’s warm, and it smells like lavender, and he thinks Pansy will be eternally grateful when he gives it to her at the end of the night. “Put on your skirt, Pans, I’ve decided I want to celebrate my glorious victory.”

***

Harry knew that he’d been off his game at Magical Law Enforcement vs. Magical Games and Sports. There hadn’t been a single game that his team had played in the past two years during which he hadn’t caught the Snitch, be it for a victory or to mercifully bring a five-hour game to an end. Other Departments’ teams had always gone into the game expecting their team to be pummeled by the youngest Seeker in a century to make a Hogwarts House team, but when they noticed just how terrible and humbling the rest of Harry’s team was, it didn’t matter much in the end. 

But he always caught the Snitch.

Just not when Malfoy was observing. Or, even worse, when Malfoy was playing. It’d been so much easier just to keep his eyes on Malfoy rather than the Snitch, because they gravitated to him regardless. So if he hadn’t been staring at the back of Malfoy’s wind-mussed, white-blonde head and had kept an eye out for the buggering Snitch, he might not have sent Malfoy sailing down into Clem Creasey’s waiting arms. Ron would claim that the worse outcome of Harry’s negligence was their tragic loss, which, alright, Harry was pretty damn embarrassed about, but more importantly, Parkinson had noticed. Once they’d landed on the ground with Malfoy and Creasey, she’d told him that ‘if he didn’t keep his beady, little eyes off Malfoy’s arse, he’d disappear quicker than Lucius Malfoy had from Azkaban,’ to which Harry had been able to get in an exasperated ‘I wasn’t —‘ before the punches began.

He wasn’t, though, wasn’t going to do whatever Pansy had implicitly accused him of thinking about. Hell, Harry can hardly lay eyes on Malfoy without recalling the image of him splayed out in a silk robe for Blaise Zabini, but that doesn’t mean he’ll do anything about it. He has Danica, and a wank bank full of memories of a thin, tired, but beautiful Malfoy locked up on the grounds of the Manor. And Malfoy has Creasey, it seems. Based on Harry’s analysis of the reciprocation of Creasey’s affections, though, it does seem that Malfoy has Creasey, in that he’s got him wrapped around the tip of his wand. What Creasey has of Malfoy is limited to the ten-second snog they’d shared in Harry’s living room. Harry would say he himself has more, considering him and Malfoy are living together, but it’s somewhat against both of their wills and with no romantic undertones. In conclusion, Harry thinks Creasey has more.

They’re at The Handmaiden, the Muggle pub Ministry workers frequent post-rec Quidditch games and just on general downtime. The same, rowdy crowds come in so often that someone’s explained to the pub owner that they all work at the bank on the corner and like to pop in whenever someone makes an unusually large deposit. Harry thinks that it’d only confused the owner more. He’s squeezed into a wooden booth between Ron and Danica, who’d already happened to be at the pub with her longtime friend (surprise!) Paloma Bexley. They’d been ‘just leaving,’ but Malfoy had urged them to stay for a pint on Harry. Malfoy hadn’t been too cheered to see Paloma at first, but after a few rounds he’d certainly warmed up to her presence.

Right. He’s got his best mate on one side, his ‘sex-friend,’ as coined by Malfoy, on his other side, and he’s thinking about the nonexistent romantic undertones of his and Malfoy’s living situation. His fingers are wrapped around his cold pint, and Danica’s got her fingernails absently scratching at the back of Harry’s scalp the way he likes best as she chats with Paloma, and he’s wondering when the hell he’d become so needy. That’s the only word he can think of to describe it.

It’s not even that he craves romance, per se. Sure, he feels a twinge of jealousy whenever Ron and Hermione publicly moon over each other, clearly enraptured by just one another’s presence; gentle touches, shared looks, inside jokes, fond teasing. Merlin, it’s not like he wants to wine and dine Malfoy, because he thinks that would not only be a lot of work, but a lot of awkwardness interspersed with unpleasant, combative, back-and-forth conversation, if one could even call their exchanges conversation. Just another little thing, though, that drives Harry mad to be a third wheel to, to have to escape the room when it becomes so cloying, is the sexual tension. Harry thought he’d been more familiar than most students with the layout of Hogwarts castle, but when the three of them had returned for eighth year and Ron and Hermione’s fledgling relationship had survived the stress and grief of the war, Harry had learned plenty of new escape paths and secret passages. It’d been a necessity, because Ron and Hermione had come out of the war stronger than ever, and stronger meant hornier, and hornier meant that so much as a shared touch, look, or word from someone passing by could spur an intense snogging session, or more. At first, Harry had tried to tough it out, pretend they weren’t there, wait on them as if it would be over in five minutes, which it often was given Ron’s stamina at eighteen. But then Ron had begun to give him the ‘What The Fuck, Mate?’ look over Hermione’s shoulder every time, and if he didn’t fuck off, then... Well, Harry never found out.

He’d had Ginny at the time, to some extent. They’d been trying. Unlike Ron and Hermione, though, they hadn’t spent months on the run together. They’d both been ghosts of themselves when they’d returned to Hogwarts, and it would take a while for them to become whole again, which they’d had to alone before they could begin to mend what distance and personal hardships had done to them as a couple. It’d been like a sigh of relief, really, when the passion and affection slowly began to return — along with the general pleasure of just _feeling_. It just hadn’t been everlasting between them.

He’s needy. A dozen Malfoy scenarios run through his mind an hour. And Malfoy doesn’t make it any easier, not even when he acts like the git he is. It doesn’t turn Harry off. Harry takes a sip of his beer and sighs, relaxing his head against Danica’s hand. Malfoy’s at the bar with Pansy, and her jeans on his body make his cute, little arse look obscene. It’s thoughts like that, exactly, that make Harry’s face and chest flush unreasonably, because nobody but the unsuspecting Legilimens and himself can hear them, and he thinks he can safely assume there’s none of the former present. Malfoy even pulls off the Weasley Christmas sweater, possibly better than Ginny ever had. Knowing it hasn’t been worn by anyone but Malfoy, not even by Ron, makes him want to bundle up the thready mess and bury his face into it, breathe it in. Or better yet, the jeans that he’s half-certain Malfoy isn’t wearing anything beneath —

“Harry,” Danica laughs suddenly, snapping her fingers in front of his eyes. It’s apparent she’s been saying his name for longer than just that.

He rakes his fingers through the front of his hair and turns a sheepish smile on her. “Sorry.”

Danica just shakes her head and chuckles. “You didn’t tell me you’d see the wedding venue.” Harry doesn’t know when he would’ve shared that particular gem of information, or why even, recalling his spat with Malfoy. “Is it as amazing as it sounds?”

“Don’t give too much away,” Paloma says quickly, practically bouncing in her seat. She smiles beatifically at the two of them.

“Oh. Yeah. It’s great. Malfoy went... er. A little overboard. Appropriately overboard, of course,” Harry says. He presses his cold glass to his cheek. He’s not sure if he’s making sense. Most likely not, as he’s too distracted by Malfoy at the bar. The captain of the Magical Games and Sports team they’d played that day is kneeling on the floor, and Malfoy looks cross as Parkinson tries to hound him to get on the bloke’s shoulders. ‘You get up there, if you’re so fucking insistent,’ he thinks he can read from Malfoy’s lips, and the captain doesn’t look any less pleased when Pansy hands her drink to Malfoy and she climbs up onto his shoulders. The top of her head hits the ceiling as the bloke straightens. Malfoy, in the midst of finishing Pansy’s drink for her, spits half of it out as he laughs. It drips down his chin and onto his neck, and Malfoy looks vaguely disgusted at himself, but Harry is thankful for the visual. 

All good things must come to an end, however, so Harry’s not surprised when the big bloke from Magical Games and Sports, with Pansy still on his shoulders, hunkered down so she won’t smack into the stained glass lamps hanging from the ceiling, gets in Harry’s ideal view of Malfoy. He approaches their table, the big one that they’ve all crowded around — Creasey on Ron’s other side, Magical Games and Sports workers across from Harry — and deposits Pansy directly on top of the table.

“Watch your beer, Potter,” she says, turning around carefully in her mary-jane-like heels. Ron shifts beside him, and Harry spares him a glance to find he’s trying to ignore his angle of sight right up Parkinson’s skirt. Then she claps her hands together. “Hey!” she shouts, and when no Muggle so much as stirs, her voice goes gruffer as she squawks another, _“hey!”_ More eyes turn that time, and she smiles, tilting her head to the side as she waves hello. “Hey. Thanks for tuning in. I — I just.” She cackles right in the middle of her speech, clapping her hands together out of amusement this time.

“How pissed is she?” Ron mutters as he leans over toward Harry. He chuckles breathily.

“I — Sorry, no! Don’t tune out yet! I’m good,” Parkinson protests, quickly waving her arms above her head. “Right, so. I just wanted to congratulate my bestest fucking mate, from the — the little, plastic card department at that bank we all work at.” She’s grinning right at Malfoy, holding her arms out toward him. “Because he got Employee of the Week today!” She does a little shimmy that makes Ron sink down lower in his seat. Between Pansy’s legs, Harry can see Malfoy, looking mortified, chewing on his knuckle as he presses himself into the bar, like he could meld into it, become a part of it. “Get the fuck up here, babe!” The Muggles look on in confusion, but they don’t look away.

 _‘What the fuck, Pans?’_ Malfoy mouths, but then the bloke who’d carried Pansy shoves Malfoy forward. Malfoy gives him a look that could kill, but he’s been exposed, so he reluctantly traipses to Harry’s table, takes Pansy’s hands, and climbs up, knocking someone’s beer over in the process and making brief eye contact with Harry. He clears his throat, gives a meager wave to the pub patrons.

“Speech!” Pansy sings, swaying on her four-inch heels as she presses into Malfoy’s side.

“Fuck,” Malfoy laughs, his face a sweet shade of pink. “Er, yes. Thank you, thank you all for listening. I — I know I’ve earned this, as I was really damn good with the plastic cards this month, the plastic was really, really good, and they were really, very small and rectangular, and I deserve this, this honorable title. But I’d also like to thank Potter here,” he peers back at Harry over his shoulder, points him out for all the patrons to see, “for sucking so much that he made me look even better. Thank you.”

Pansy screams for Malfoy and beside Harry, Danica weaves her fingers into his hair again as she grins at him.

“He’s right, you suck, mate!” Ron shouts over the reluctant but growing applause for Malfoy, who seems to be basking in it now. Malfoy peers down at Harry with a wry smile, an expressive one that reaches his eyes, warmed by the alcohol. Harry has the decency to at least look ashamed for the pub, but he bites the tip of his tongue as he returns Malfoy’s gaze. He wants to ravish him. Malfoy raises an eyebrow, almost challengingly, but he’s not on the table for long, because he places a foot on the bench right between Danica and Harry, and Danica and Paloma hurry to shift and make room for him. Malfoy kisses Pansy’s knuckles before he lets go of her hand and lowers himself down in between them. It’s a tight squeeze. Malfoy’s hair is clean but unstyled, falling in soft locks to frame his face. His usually rigid composure is fuzzy around the edges, and maybe it’s the fact that Harry’s been undressing him with his eyes for the past hour, but his borrowed clothing seems a lot easier to shuck off than his usual, elaborate ensembles — not that Harry would mind unbuttoning every blazer and waistcoat it took.

“Hi, Potter’s sex-friend,” Malfoy says to Danica as he leans back in the seat. The thick wool of the Christmas jumper on Malfoy’s arm, pressed against his own, makes Harry break a sweat. “Who would’ve thought, yeah, that my best mate’s fiancé and Potter’s sex-friend are best buddies?” As Malfoy crosses his legs, his propped-up, bare ankle comes to rest against the inside of Harry’s knee. Harry swallows hard. Shit. Is this some sort of signal? Should he be reading into this? Can he read into this? He wants to.

“Hi, Draco,” Danica says, beaming. “That was somethin’.”

Malfoy shrugs, his fingers drumming in an anxious way against the edge of the table until he reaches for what’s very clearly Harry’s beer. “This yours, Potter?” he asks quietly, meeting his eyes fleetingly and not waiting for a response to curl his fingers around the glass and bring it to his own lips. “Yeah. Pansy’s fucked. I just, like... Had to go with it.” He drains Harry’s glass, sets it back on the table, and laces his fingers together between his thighs. Danica just smiles in response, so a silence framed by the clamor of the people around them ensues, until Malfoy turns his head toward Harry. “Did you like my dedication, Potter?” he asks. He’d enunciating his consonants as if he realizes that if he didn’t try to hard enough, they’d come out like gobbledegook. “Just for you.” Harry swallows thickly, tempted to touch Malfoy’s bare ankle with its fine, light hair against his knee.

“It was very sincere,” Harry tells him. He’s proud of himself for even stringing two words together. “And accurate. Sadly.”

Malfoy breathes out something like a laugh through his nose, lips curling up at the corners. Harry shifts in his seat, because he feels like the sweat seeping through the back of his t-shirt is gluing him to the bench, and he only ends up nudging Malfoy’s ankle where it lays against his knee. It draws Malfoy’s eyes down to it, but he doesn’t move. Harry swears it’s the alcohol in his veins mingling with Malfoy’s proximity and the fact that he’d caught glimpses of his actual naked body, not just in a Pensieve, in the locker rooms just an hour ago that’s making even Malfoy’s ankle seem sexy to him. He doesn’t think ankles are societally considered to be provocative body parts, but Malfoy’s are thin and nice and Harry would lick them, if he’s quite fucking honest. He doesn’t want to know what Malfoy would think about that. “Pansy claims you’re usually better,” Malfoy mutters, then, eyes still cast down. “What happened out there, Potter? Distracted right from the very start. Tut-tut.”

“Something like that,” Harry says.

Malfoy’s lips purse into the faintest smirk, but he says nothing. He cocks his head to the side lazily, eyes passing over Harry toward Paloma. She’s talking about her hen night, which Danica is attending, of course. “Fuck,” he breathes a moment later, and then he’s climbing out of his seat stumblingly, his hand grasping Harry’s thigh in passing as he seats himself on the very surface of the table and scoots his way across. He nudges glasses and bowls of peanuts here and there. Harry’s not sure if it’s the most effective way out of the booth, but Malfoy makes it out and his feet touch the ground, and Harry releases a breath he feels like he’s been holding for years. Danica fills the empty space that Malfoy just vacated, and Harry feels the burning imprint of Malfoy’s hand on his leg, but he’s trapped there on both sides by Ron and Danica, left to watch Malfoy stalk in the direction of the loo. He could climb across the table, too, make a scene, earn a few stares, but he doesn’t. That would be glaringly obvious, wouldn’t it, charging after him like a drunken imbecile, pleading for some kind of release from this feverish need he has, the reason for which he’s not even allowed to explain?

Harry takes calm breaths and reaches for his beer, only to remember that Malfoy had drunk it all. He smiles vaguely and prematurely tunes out when Ron’s arm hooks around his neck and drags him into a conversation with a bloke from Magical Games and Sports — he’s saying something about ‘his best buddy Harry,’ probably trying to game his way to free Quidditch tickets, as he refuses to stoop so low as to take the season passes Ginny tirelessly offers to give him. Ron is enough of a celebrity by association as well of his own accord, though, to get what he wants. Harry thinks he doesn’t realize that.

Five minutes later, Malfoy hasn’t returned from the loo. Then Creasey gets up and makes his way there himself. Neither of them return for an hour, or two minutes, or five seconds — however long it actually was, it’s long enough for Harry’s impatience with Creasey’s antics to run thin. “Excuse me,” he says once, then several times, as it’s quite a process scooting out of the booth, sitting on every other person’s lap until he’s able to escape. Nobody’s looking at him, not even the annoyingly observant Pansy, but he still wipes his sweaty palms on his jeans and tries to avoid everyone’s eyes as if he’s up to something. Which he’s not. He’s just using the toilet. There’s nothing wrong with that.

The door to the men’s loo is locked, and neither Creasey nor Malfoy are anywhere in sight. Casting a wary glance around him first, Harry presses his ear to the door, but he can’t separate the commotion of the pub from what’s going on in the toilet — if anything. Maybe they’re snogging, maybe Malfoy gave in and they’re finally fucking, or maybe they’re having tea; whatever it is, Harry feels he has to know. So, on impulse, he pulls his wand from beneath his shirt and directs it at the door handle, muttering a quick “Alohomora” and charging in.

Tea was the closest guess. Malfoy’s sitting against the edge of the sink, arms folded over his chest, while Creasey leans up against the wall nearby, their heads bowed as if Harry had just interrupted a conversation. And — he had. Harry recalls that he’s not wearing his invisibility cloak, that he’s not even tried to be cautious about entering.

“Potter, what the actual fuck?” Malfoy hisses, his spine going straight as he rises from the sink. Creasey just looks on in confusion, his mouth in the shape of a small ‘o’.

Harry strides over to the sink, where Malfoy stands, clearing his throat as he turns the faucet on and makes to wash his hands. “Pansy wants to see you, Creasey,” he murmurs, meeting Malfoy’s eyes briefly before reaching for the soap. Through the mirror above the sink, Harry sees Creasey’s brows furrow, but he nods and pushes off the wall, giving Malfoy a withering look before he leaves. The laughter and tipsy gossiping floods the toilet until Creasey shuts the door behind him and the only sound is that of the water running.

Harry chances a glance at Malfoy from the corner of his eye. He hasn’t moved from his perch on the sink, but his jaw is set, gaze straight ahead. “What are you doing?” he asks, voice spiteful, but also something like weary.

“Needed to wash my hands,” Harry responds, finally turning the water off when he thinks his fingers might start to prune.

Malfoy doesn’t smile, not even sardonically, like Harry had hoped. “No, you didn’t. For all you knew, some Muggle could’ve been in here taking a shit, yet you had to burst in and make a scene, all because you really, really needed to wash your hands? Smart, Potter.” He sighs and closes his eyes. “I don’t need Auror patrol in the loo. Is this a new development in your job description? I feel as if it’s something Robards would’ve notified me about, if I had to start taking Harry fucking Potter to the toilets with me every time I decide to go.”

Harry snorts quietly, wiping his wet hands against his jeans instead of using paper towel, because that’s just how his brain works at the moment. “I just thought — you were with Creasey, and I thought —“

“What?” Malfoy interrupts, turning his head suddenly to stare Harry down. “What did you think, hm? That we were going at it in the toilets of a dingy Muggle pub? That I was defying your wishes to stay away from that ‘sleazebag,’ even though it’s none of your business?”

Harry doesn’t answer for a moment. Having Malfoy’s vehement, undivided attention on him is so intoxicating it dizzies him. He says stiffly, “you can do whatever you want —“

“Can I?” Malfoy drawls and chuckles out of exasperation. “Can I, really? Oh, thank Merlin! Thank you, Potter, for giving me the permission to make my own decisions, go to the toilet if I fucking please, fuck a sleazebag if I fucking please.”

Harry’s temper had subsided marginally once Creasey had left the room, because after that, it’d just been Malfoy; Malfoy, whose dickishness he could deal with and had dealt with for many years in a row, once upon a time. Just the mention of Creasey in such a context, though, the fact that his name is once again on Malfoy’s lips, has him seeing red. “Make all the decisions you want, but if this is because of Zabini, if you’re letting Clem talk you into — into things, those decisions aren’t very smart.”

Malfoy’s eyelids flutter in something like disbelief, though his gaze on Harry is unmoving. “What right do you have, you absolute prick, to make any assumptions about Blaise and I? To talk about us?” He smiles suddenly in that joyless, cold way of his, looking past Harry’s shoulder for a moment before he chuckles and shakes his head. “What fucking right?” he demands and raises his hand, knuckles tensed and white and tendons bulging as he points a finger at Harry. “Tell me.” Malfoy nearly jabs Harry in the chest, but Harry catches his arm before it can make contact. His fingers tightly circle Malfoy’s wrist, the pads of them pressed to the thin skin on the inside of it so he can feel his pulse racing beneath. Something about that is lovely to Harry. When he and Ginny had been together, albeit briefly, when he’d really, truly thought he’d loved her, they would spoon after sex. Ginny hated it, the sticky drag of sweaty skin on sweaty skin, would never let Harry stay attached to her in that way through the night. She couldn’t fall asleep until he let go. _“Fine. Five more minutes,”_ she’d huff whenever he begged. Harry had adored it, though. He’d liked to press his face into her hair, the junction of her neck, the faint knobs of her spine between her shoulder blades. He’d liked to press his hand against the left side of her chest, feel her heart beat and her rib cage rise with her every breath. He’d sometimes place his thumb against the pulse point on her neck, just to feel the soft throb beneath. It meant she was alive, and she was with him, and all of the blood rushing through her veins, every laborious beat of her heart, every inhale and exhale, it was all keeping her alive, and for that he’d been so grateful.

Harry’s brain subconsciously counts the beats of Malfoy’s heart as he returns his gaze. He has no right. He has no right to talk about it, knowing what he does, he shouldn’t even have a right to think about it. He shouldn’t have the right to trap Malfoy’s arm against his will, though it’s almost like it isn’t — Harry’s touching him, and Malfoy is touching him back with the soft, beating pressure of his veins. Malfoy hasn’t drawn away, either, though his eyes are wild, like he’s waiting for a response to a question he’d forgotten the moment Harry touched him. Or perhaps that’s Harry projecting.

“None,” Harry finally mutters, and he drags Malfoy into him, dropping his wrist to cup his cheeks instead as he kisses him. Stupid. Stupid, impulsive — there’s a whole dictionary of things Hermione would’ve called him right then. But Malfoy’s face is soft under his fingertips, his lips are warm and he tastes the same way Harry does because they’d drunk the same beer, just with a hint of something distinctly Malfoy. And the only reason he’s able to know that is because it only takes Malfoy three seconds — yes, he counts — to go pliant, to part his lips against Harry’s and wind trembling arms around his neck like he’d just read Harry’s mind begging him to do so. He smells like the lavender of the Weasleys’ clothes and something floral that must be Pansy’s shampoo from the locker rooms and like something familiar, like that little corner of Harry’s home he’d begun to carve out weeks ago. Harry drags his thumb over Malfoy’s lower lip, smushing it as he does, and he cracks his eyes open just slightly to watch Malfoy bite tenderly on the end of his thumb, and _fuck_ , it’s better than any wet dream Harry’s ever had, and he closes his mouth over Malfoy’s and his own finger, yearning for him to bite his lip like that, let his tongue in. He moves his hands to grasp at Malfoy’s waist through the thick jumper, and that’s when it breaks. Malfoy’s withdrawing his arms, shoving Harry back by the chest, walking backwards until his back hits the opposite wall. His hand covers his mouth, his eyes are wide and fixed on the floor, and his other arm hugs the middle of his body where Harry’s hands had just been. Harry feels a lump form in his throat, so big he might choke on it, and he tries to talk, but it’s all the worse when his voice comes out desperately raspy.

“Malfoy…”

Malfoy shakes his head rapidly, holds up a finger to silence Harry, all without looking at him. “Fuck. What the fuck?” he breathes, hunching in on himself.

And then the door bursts open. Pansy strides in, hands on her hips, her hawk eyes searching out Harry until they settle on him. “Potter, care to tell me why the hell you’re telling lies ‘bout me to Creasey from the toilet?” she asks shrilly. 

“What is it with people today? Can nobody go to the loo in peace?” Malfoy gripes the moment Pansy’s finished her question. Harry probably looks too alarmed by her arrival for his own good, and that, compounded with the silence that follows and the mottled pink and paper-white shades of Malfoy’s face, easily clue her in. On what, she doesn’t seem to be sure, but she’s aware that she’s just stepped into crossfire on a battlefield.

Pansy’s dark brows crinkle in confusion. “What did I just walk in on?” she says practically to herself, and walks to Malfoy, taking him by both arms. “You alright, babe?” Pansy’s head tilts to the side, rubbing at them comfortingly. She casts another cursory glance at Harry, frowning, before she turns to Malfoy again. “You feelin’ ill? Too much to drink? Time to head home?” Home, as in Harry’s home. Harry’s nails dig into the insides of his palms, just to have some place to channel all his tension. 

“Please,” Malfoy murmurs, dropping his hands from his face, and Pansy wraps an arm around his waist to guide him out of the toilet. Their eyes, his and Malfoy’s, meet fleetingly on their way out. Malfoy’s are steely, gray, and Harry can’t read anything from them, not with the dark clouds looming in Malfoy’s pupils. He can only imagine, though, based on the horror on his face when he’d drawn back, that Harry had just forced them to stumble seven steps backward in whatever progress they’d made to being not-enemies. Does that put them before or after the state they’d been at when Malfoy had nearly Crucioed him?

The door bangs shut. Harry flicks his wand absently so the lock seals itself shut. His eyes close and he allows his head to drop back against the wall with a heavy thud. He’s still half-hard, because as attractive as Pansy is, he finds no appeal in her mother-henning and cock-blocking when it comes to Malfoy. He doesn’t want to think about anything other than the way Malfoy had melted into him, kissed him like a lover, like Harry had been his Blaise Zabini, but can he without sitting and anxiously awaiting the next moment he sees him, this time in broad daylight, probably sober, one of them furious, one of them wishing he were regretful.

That would be Harry, of course. He swears to Voldemort’s grave that Malfoy had enjoyed it, even if ephemerally, and _fuck_ , it makes Harry’s head spin, even in a state of sweaty, flustered post-Pansy embarrassment, to think of the way Malfoy’s mouth had closed over his thumb. So, he doesn’t regret it. He might in an hour, when he’s more levelheaded, or tomorrow morning, but not now. His heart is still racing, his palms still warm with the memory of the thick twists of the yarn of the jumper at Malfoy’s waist, and the door is fucking closed, and at least he can trust that no Muggle will _Alohomora_ their way in. So he sighs, slides a hand down the front of his trousers. He’ll punish himself tomorrow, attempt repentance by reflecting on the bits and pieces of the Dursleys’ bi-yearly church visits and accepting that what he feels right now to be so, so right is actually so, _so_ wrong.


	10. Chapter 10

Blaise’s stag do is to be as follows, or so he’d demanded of Draco, Greg, and Theo Nott, who’d been charged to carry out his every wish for his final outing as a lascivious bachelor: a full weekend — at least two days, minimum, of straight debauchery. Given that Blaise didn’t take into account those without inheritances — inheritances that reside in a vault in Gringotts in the form of a small swimming pool of galleons and gold — who must work for their earnings both on Friday and Monday, it would be restricted to two days, Draco had decided. They would visit a bar or strip club in every country in Europe within that span, only retreating to their debauchery headquarters at Draco’s new house in Wigton if the plights of exhaustion or alcohol poisoning began to be too much, which is equivalent to, in Blaise’s own words, ‘if you’re too pussy.’ The house, though, has been transformed for the moment from a quaint, country abode to a rather horrid place stocked with all of Blaise’s favorite food, alcohol, witches to serve it all in stupidly antiquated maid costumes they’re meant to shed on a moment’s notice, and a stripper pole that Draco had begrudgingly conjured into the parlour upon Blaise’s request. It’s kind of a disgrace. Draco can only hope that none of his potential buyers attend this stag party and see the home in this state of sleaze. Then again, his friends may only be encouraged by that. 

Draco handles the Portkeys, the supplies, the strippers, everything, because even when it’s meant to be a drunken weekend of tits, infidelity, and gluttony for his once-lover, he still wants it to be perfect. He wouldn’t dare put this event on his resume, though. Theo and Greg do nothing but amass the posse of Blaise’s favorite people that they’ll drag along on their escapades. Strangely enough, Potter is among those people. Theo had turned up at the Auror Headquarters, laughed his head off when he’d found Draco sitting behind a tiny desk with his inkwells organized in ROYGBIV and surrounded by harried, crass Aurors going about their Life Savers’ agendas, and told him that Blaise wanted to extend an invite to Potter. It’d been excessive. Potter would’ve had to tag along anyway to supervise Draco’s sorry arse, but Theo had had to be obnoxious about it.

Pansy hadn’t been surprised by Potter's invitation, for some odd reason. But Draco also hadn’t told her that Potter had kissed him the night of the last Quidditch match.

And that Draco had kissed him back. Alcohol lowers inhibitions, and he’d been tipsily venting about Paloma’s presence to none other than Clemence Creasey just moments before Potter had barged in, and was therefore in a state of lunacy enough to think it was logical to suck Potter’s tongue into his mouth.

And now, he's to spend the coming weekend off his head with Blaise and Potter. Draco thinks that with all his wrongdoings, it’s not out of the blue for fate to smack him across the face twice with the same fucking predicament.

Perhaps he’ll just stay sober. Because... it can’t happen again. The thought of being sober whilst topless witches crawl all over Blaise as he gets inevitably handsy, though, sounds more torturous than sitting in on a forty-eight hour long History of Magic lecture. But it can’t happen again.

Draco had spent the Sunday after the Quidditch match holed up in his room. He’d installed a Floo-Network-registered fireplace in that bedroom, unbeknownst to Potter, so it’d been easy enough to handle wedding business, make calls to florists and communicate with Iggy and Tilly’s friends who would be joining them to cater the event, and the like. He’d had his meals up in his room as well as his seven cups of tea to cleanse Potter out of his system, and come Monday morning, he’d waited for Potter at the foot of the stairs to leave for the Ministry. Potter had been late, had walked down to Draco with an awkward, tense gait, and opened with a “Listen, Malfoy...” that Draco had rolled his eyes at and waved off. “Shut up, Potter. We have nothing to discuss,” he’d said, and then wrapped his fingers around Potter’s forearm — to be Side-Alonged, of course. Potter had shifted uncomfortably, eyed Draco through that messy fringe of his, but he hadn’t protested.

There was no news about the letter from ‘his mother’ that Draco had passed over to the Aurors. There had been no more mail since then, no supposed attackers approaching him, either, and obviously, Draco was perfectly fine. He wasn’t thinking about his father or his mother — not much, anyway. He wasn’t his father’s biggest fan any longer, but he knew he wasn’t a dangerous man, and if the Aurors didn’t know that Draco didn’t mind the thought of Lucius hiding out for his remaining years in some remote location, rather than wasting away in Azkaban, it wouldn’t hurt them. He cared about his mother considerably more, but even when it came to her, he didn’t worry. She had built a career out of winding up in less-than-ideal circumstances, surviving to the best of her ability, and weaseling her way out on the off chance that it came to be too much to handle. However, Draco thinks, it might be worth considering that she’s not all there any longer. Fragile mental state or not, though, if she's insane enough to work out a ploy to get his father out of Azkaban, it's only fair that Draco’s father echo that insanity and take care of her while they’re on the run.

It’s a morning ritual of Draco’s to reflect on this; just for ten minutes or so, as he has his croissant, and then he’ll realize that he has no need for parents or the burdens with which his particular pair comes. He has Pansy to keep him in line. He supposes the Aurors belong on that list, as well, and he doesn’t mind as much as he once would’ve, because they’re not a terrible bunch, just overexcited and horny for action. But he’s still not Weasley’s biggest fan. A few years ago, Blaise would’ve come instantly to mind, too, but he’s not quite sure what Blaise does for him anymore at this point in their friendship. And then there’s Potter.

Potter, who had kissed him.

Draco hadn’t told Pansy. Potter probably hadn’t told a soul, either, because when Granger had popped into the Auror Offices that week to bring her partner his lunch in a bloody brown bag like a middle-aged mother, she’d given Draco a friendly smile. And Weasley continues to cautiously distance himself. Draco suspects that if he knew they’d snogged, Weasley would either attempt to pound the shit out of him or would pass out, disgusted, in a pool of his own vomit.

His secret is safe for now.

 _For now_. He doesn’t give Potter a chance to mention it, hushes him every time or ignores his desperate Gryffindor urge to confront problems that poking and prodding will only exacerbate. In fact, it’s Friday evening, and Draco has succeeded in speaking a total of six words to Potter that whole day — “hurry up” when they’d needed to depart for the house in Wigton to make last minute touches to Blaise’s stag party, and “shut up” on two occasions.

Draco stands in the doorway to the living room, arms folded over his chest, surveying Blaise and his loud horde of oafs. There's about twenty of them, not counting the maid-witch on the pole or the several others scattered upon laps. The room has been transformed for the occasion — the ceiling is draped with black velvet, the floor a nearly-black mahogany, and bottles of liquor cover every surface. It makes Draco gag, and it's his own doing. He’s brought this upon himself. But when Blaise slaps Greg on the back and throws his head back in a laugh, the garish velvet disappears for him. Potter sits on the couch and chats with Theo, not looking as nearly as uncomfortable as Draco would’ve hoped, inundated by Slytherins of schooldays past.

A rather large hand chooses that moment to grasp Draco’s arse, and he jumps slightly, only to peer over his shoulder into the eyes of a man of striking resemblance to an actor in a Muggle film Pansy had once forced him to watch on her picture box.

“Do you mind, sweetcheeks?” the deep voice asks, and then Draco notices the man is wearing a black, silky slip dress that’s pulled much too tight across his chest.

“First, uninvited groping is sexual harassment, Pansy,” Draco states. “Second, if you’ve got balls down there, they’re about a centimetre from greeting me. Watch the hemline. Third, what the hell are you doing here?”

Pansy’s voice rises two octaves while she cackles, and she shrinks a foot as her cropped, black hair shoots out once again from her scalp. Her dress finally fits her. “I don’t need to morph my genitals to make a convincing young Hugh Grant,” she says lightly. “And you’re a git, Draco. I was going to show up whether I was invited or not. It just so happens that dearest Theodore did not extend me an invitation, so I’ll probably have to hex him sometime in the next several hours, but preferably once we’re in Norway and I can Permanently-Stick his balls to an igloo.”

Draco leans against the wall, hums thoughtfully. “I don't believe igloos are overly common in Norway. And the Norway Portkey isn’t until tomorrow evening. You might have to settle for bitchslapping him on the spot.”

Pansy shrugs. “Fine with me.”

Draco feels her survey him from a head below and his eyes flicker back to her eventually. “What?” he asks blankly.

“We never talked after I took you to Potter’s last weekend. When you had your little breakdown.”

Draco scoffs. “It was hardly a breakdown, Pans. I was overcome with sudden illness, as one often is when consuming unwarranted quantities of poison, which I seldom do. And I was tired.”

Pansy gives him a bored look. “Yeah, well. Given the way Potter was watching you the whole match, I figured when I heard you two were in the toilets together, you would at least be naked when I came in.” She tuts. “Disappointment.”

Draco narrows his eyes, face coloring. “I have no idea what you’re talking about with regards to Potter.” He looks away, _at_ Potter, watches him pick up a tumbler of firewhisky. “I can’t believe you thought I’d let him seduce me. Not that he would. Not that he’s interested. He wouldn’t seduce me. But if he did, my clothes would stay on, even if I wasn’t in my right mind. Which I was not, at the time. And still, they stayed on. He didn’t seduce me, though. And he wouldn’t.” Draco tries not to let his eyes wander toward Pansy, because he knows she’s dying to laugh at him. “So sorry to disappoint you — what the hell?” When he senses Pansy’s presence change beside him, he looks to find himself staring into his own face, his arms, legs, and chest bare because he’s in Pansy's goddamn dress and not the smart ensemble he’d planned for that night of a black, high-neck jumper and black trousers. “Pansy Iphigenia Parkinson, I demand that you — Salazar, are my eye bags really that dark?” Draco’s momentarily distracted, and his doppelganger smiles smugly at him before turning to head into the living room with a little skip in his — her? — step. Pansy leaves her little heels behind, because Draco’s feet are twice her size.

Draco is mortified.

“Damn, Dray, really went all out tonight, didn’t you? Outfit change?” he hears Blaise say. And, is that really necessary? Blaise has seen him in much less. He strides furiously into the room, only to find Pansy standing by Potter’s chair, running her fingers along the back of it.

Everyone present should’ve really been used to Pansy’s antics by then, but Greg still manages to let out a shout of fright at Draco’s — the _real_ Draco’s — appearance, as if that’s more horrifying than seeing Draco in a dress that barely reaches past his arse. That bumbling idiot. Potter whips around to look at him, and when he looks back, Pansy’s morphed back into her usual self. Potter has sweat beading at his hairline, which is... something.

“Got you, didn’t I, Potter?” Pansy asks coyly, and goes over to give Blaise a kiss on the cheek. Though marginally upset that he hasn’t been able to share everything with her as he usually does, Draco also thanks Merlin, Salazar Slytherin, and the spirit of Severus Snape that he hasn’t told Pansy about being kissed by Potter. She would abuse that information to no end.

He tries for a smile while still gritting his teeth. “I ought to Obliviate all of you,” he mutters, though he thinks only Greg hears, because he sees him flinch. Draco winks at him, relieved to see the smile come over Greg’s face. He forgets occasionally what a prat he’d been in school, and how much that’d truly scarred his ‘friends,’ if he deserved to call them that at the time. He raises his voice. “Now that the show’s over, the Portkey to Berlin is set to leave at midnight, sharp. And yes, Blaise, before you ask, I did ensure there would be witches in lederhosen and lederhosen only. So don’t.” He tosses a black card — very neatly, calligraphically labeled with the name of their destination — onto the coffee table, because Draco doesn’t believe in the usual custom of making his old, ratty boxers a Portkey for everyone to touch. The buzz of conversation resumes, and Draco exhales, looking at the clock on the wall. Five minutes until he’ll feel obligated to babysit a bunch of twenty-somethings going rogue across Europe.

***

Half an hour later, they’re at a club in Wizarding Berlin. The number of stripper poles and the amount of fanny Draco’s seen since their arrival has unsettled him. He almost wishes Pansy would morph back into Hugh-whatever and squeeze his arse again so he could pretend both Blaise and Potter weren’t on the receiving end of lap dances from buxom German blondes. With the way he’d come out to her during fifth year, however, when they'd been in the boys' toilets, her topless — nearly braless, had he not intervened in time — and Draco pitifully flaccid, he doubts Pansy would deign to distract him. It’d feel too incestuous, anyway. Pansy has found lederhosen of her own, and Draco doesn’t know when that happened. Greg looks like he’s fallen in love with the witch who's brought him his beer. Draco only hopes he won’t have to break it to him that it’s Draco’s generous tipping habit that’s got her mooning over Greg’s potato face.

He takes a sip of his lager and wrinkles his nose. He’s never been one for beer, but  _when in Germany_. He frowns when he realizes the seat Potter had been occupying is now empty, and then there’s a tap on his shoulder.

“Malfoy, can we ta —?” Potter’s asking from beside him. He smells cloyingly like perfume.

“No,” Draco says, not even sparing a look in his direction. “You’ve only got another half hour ’til we’ll be in Amsterdam. Might as well enjoy Frieda over there while you still can. Did you tell her you’re immortal?”

Potter snorts. “Not typically my first line.”

Draco turns to look at him before he even realizes he’s doing it. It’s a mistake. Potter’s hair is even more of a mess than usual after having long, manicured nails tease through it. His green eyes are shaded in the dim light. “What are you doing?” he sighs after deciding he’s scrutinized Potter enough.

Potter ignores him. “Why don’t you listen to your own advice and enjoy yourself?”

Draco looks away again, dragging his teeth over his lower lip. “I am.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I promise you that by Prague, I will have enough alcohol in my system to look more like I’m enjoying myself.”

Draco can hear the frown in Potter’s voice. “And when’ll that be?”

Draco slumps against the bar, letting his head tilt back toward the ceiling and his eyes fall shut. “It’s not my fault you didn’t read the bloody itinerary. What’s the point of wearing those ridiculously unfashionable spectacles if you’re not going to use your eyes?”

Potter laughs, and not even in an uncomfortable way. Draco wrinkles his nose. “How much energy does it take out of you to be such a killjoy, Malfoy?”

“About as much as it seems to cost you to be an idiot. Please go away.”

A brief silence follows, but Draco’s too smart to suspect that Potter has left. It’s not a silence, though, really. It’s filled with Theo attempting to sing a German drinking song, and Pansy correcting him on his pronunciation. Somewhere, Blaise whistles lowly, because even with his eyes closed, Draco can tell it’s him being a slag. Potter’s voice breaks through the commotion. “It’s been a week. I feel like you should at least… _acknowledge_ what happened.”

Draco breathes in deeply, purses his lips, and then nods. “Consider it acknowledged.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Potter grumbles.

Blaise interrupts whatever shreds of conversation were left when he arrives from left field and smoothly slides an arm around Draco’s waist. He kisses him wetly on the cheek, reeking of beer, and leans into Draco’s side as his eyes roam the room the way a king would scan the grounds of his kingdom. “This is sick, Dray. S’like you pulled the lederhosen right out of my dreams.”

Draco’s only slightly fixated on Blaise’s slick, brown lips as he absently presses his hand to Blaise’s stomach. “Yeah,” he says airily, before Potter’s exaggerated cough beside him has him shooting daggers his way. “Yes. All of your favorite things. Well, most. If I could’ve convinced the ladies to swim in a pool of vanilla custard, I would’ve covered all the bases,” he states afterward, voice harder, still glaring at Potter.

“The night is young,” Blaise says, and kisses Draco’s cheek one more time so he he can leave to cheer on Marcus Flint as he takes a shot from the navel of a stripper.

Draco exhales so his cheeks puff out, and out of the corner of his eye, he can see Potter’s mouth opening, inevitably to make some snide comment about Blaise, as seems to be his favorite pastime when the opportunity arises. So Draco holds up a finger to shush him, but instead he blindly knocks Potter’s beer down the front of his shirt. He's soaked completely, and neither of them say a word as Potter rights his glass, stares at Draco, and then decides to drink whatever’s left of his pint. Draco stifles a snort, thinks he’ll be able to hold his composure, and then turns to face the bar, lowering his face into his palms and his elbows to the counter as he laughs aloud helplessly.

“You’re a tit,” Potter says. A drying charm and a cleaning spell would do, but then Helga or Frieda comes over, hands on her naked waist, and shakes her head reprovingly. Draco swivels and takes a seat on a stool, just so he can watch the scene as he dabs a tear from the corner of his eye. She starts to forcibly peel Potter’s shirt from his stomach, and when he squawks in protest, she shakes her head again, braids flying. One of them hits Potter’s glasses.

“No, no, no, Meester Barry,” she says stubbornly. Helga’s friend arrives with a t-shirt that reads ‘Deutschland’ in bold letters with a cartoon version of herself — it could be any of the girls, really — printed on. “For you,” they both say, and then Potter’s naked for a split second before they start to wrestle the souvenir onto his body. His chest is covered in thick, dark hair, still a little damp from the beer. Draco’s fingers curl into his own thigh.

“I happen to fondly recall, Potter, that you recently did the same with your morning coffee,” says Draco.

“This time was hardly my fault,” Potter argues from inside the ‘Deutschland’ shirt, voice muffled. The shirt is ridiculously tight, and it stretches taut over Potter’s biceps, and Merlin help Draco, because he’s staring.

“ _Is perfect_ ,” Frieda says, and her and her chum give Potter kisses to his cheeks. Potter stands like he can’t quite put his arms down, eyes moving resentfully toward Draco.

“Is perfect, Barry,” Draco echoes, swinging his legs on the stool. He can’t help himself from grinning. Perhaps it’s the German beer. Or Potter’s pecs.

“Sod off, Mr. Martin.”

***

When Draco takes a headcount in Paris, he’s surprised they’re all present. Granted, he’d had to interrupt Greg mid-handjob in the back of a club in the Red Light District so he wouldn’t miss the Portkey, which was traumatizing for everyone involved. But he’s handling things. He’s good at handling things. Blaise has kissed him thrice more on his cheek. He’s taken too many shots to count. He’s seen Pansy’s tits at least twice, not that it’s anything new. He wonders if inebriated Portkey usage is illegal. Then again, they’ve got the Savior with them. The law is blind to Harry Potter.

Draco thinks that if he had a name that inspired awe and a scar on his forehead that people had taken to tattooing onto their skin post-war, he would flaunt it. But perhaps it’s just the little, bitter chunk of him that's mad he can’t introduce himself to a stranger by his full name without someone in the vicinity muttering murderously under their breath. But Potter’s introduced himself to every stripper and dancer as _Barry_. They obsess over him all the same.

“I don’t think I can make it to the end of the weekend if you keep this up,” Pansy tells him. She’s sitting on the bar, her high heels lying on the floor, hair askew. The carpet at the Parisian club is leopard-printed and the walls, covered in fuzzy material, are a glaring pink, though they look magenta in the soft light from the heavy, dangling crystal chandeliers. The walls cast a rosy sheen over exposed skin. Pansy hiccups as she latches onto Draco’s shoulder.

Draco turns his head so their noses are an inch apart, batting his eyes at her. “What could you possibly be talking about?” he asks. He tugs at the collar of his turtleneck. It’s sticking to his skin a bit.

“I know Blaise is enjoying an adulterous night before your very eyes, darling, but don’t let that encourage you. You’ll only feel worse.” Pansy cups Draco’s chin and kisses the tip of his nose. He wants to cry because he adores her so. He doesn’t respond, though, just slumps into a red, padded barstool and lays his head against her lap. Her fingernails scratch along his scalp and pull shivers out of him. It’s nearly five in the morning. He’d be content to pass out right there. But the Northern Lights in Sweden await. Draco’s not as excited as Blaise is. From what he’s heard, it sounds awfully like a natural _Morsmordre_ phenomenon.

“How’s your tittyfest been?” Draco asks sullenly into the satin of her dress. His eyes go in search of Potter. A witch in a g-string and nipple tassels hovers several feet above a captivated audience in an acrobatic position, her head very close to the soles of her feet. He sees the flash of a black, messy head disappear through a gap between the velvet curtains lining the walls.

Pansy responds, but Draco isn’t interested enough to decipher her voice from the noise. Some sort of stimulant potion might help him out. He lazily casts a Tempus charm and then sits up, drawing the stack of mini-Portkeys from his pocket and unshrinking them. “Sweden in five,” he tells Pansy as he hands them to her. “Start rounding them up. I’ll go find Greg.” And Potter. He gives her bare shoulder a mindless kiss and rolls his eyes when she hiccups again. Then he slides his hands into his pockets and proceeds to meander between the platforms for poles and the overstuffed, red couches, tapping shoulders along the way. At the very start of the night, he’d been approached unfailingly by strippers he’d paid for for the lads. Not one of them has approached him in recent hours, and Draco’s not sure what that means about his countenance. He parts the heavy drapes through which Potter had disappeared. The low, golden light from the main room doesn’t penetrate the curtains into the hallway beyond, and Draco can barely see where he’s stepping. It’s a disorienting maze of pink drapes everywhere he turns, and he practically sighs in relief when the slap of a paddle striking sensitive skin wrenches a pleading cry from someone’s throat nearby and it’s _not_ Greg’s voice. He’d sooner leave him in Paris before he had to physically untangle him from a BDSM session.

“Greg?” Draco calls, stumbling a bit over a crease in the carpet. “Potter?” He rakes his fingers through his hair, which was long since a mess, and it’s been hours since Draco had seen a mirror. A brunette head pokes out between two pink drapes to Draco’s right, and he startles.

“Pouvez-vous m’aide, monsieur?” she hisses pleadingly, then drags the curtain further aside. Potter’s sitting on the floor, trousers half-undone, looking far drunker than when they’d touched down on the Boulevard des Galantes. “Il est trop lourd pour moi.” She pouts, stepping back against the wall and folding her arms over her bare chest.

It’s only then that Potter notices him. “Malfoy,” he breathes, and attempts to start rising from the floor. Draco had never thought the act of standing could look so precarious.

“Overindulged a bit, have we, Potter?” he asks carefully. If the woman expects him to carry Potter, she’s overestimated Draco’s strength. He grabs onto Potter’s arm despite his reservations and nods vaguely at the less-than-half-dressed woman as he draws Potter onto his feet. “Don’t go all dead weight on me. I’ll be beheaded if I leave the Boy Who Lived behind,” he warns. He could always _Levicorpus_ him, but he’s worried Potter would blow chunks. Draco probably would just watching it happen.

Potter’s eyes aren’t on the floor like they should be. He’s staring at Draco, skin flushed with warmth from the insulating, velvet curtains, dark stubble shading his jaw. “Where next?” he slurs eventually, whiskey breath fanning all over Draco’s face as he gets his arm around Draco’s shoulders. The girl was right. He’s heavy.

“Swedish Lapland.” Draco holds onto Potter’s wrist where it dangles over his shoulder and gets an arm around his waist. He’s yet to take an actual step. “I know your big ego makes it difficult to fit other useful knowledge in your head, Potter, but please recall the ability to walk from somewhere in its dark reaches. If it’s as messy as your desk, I’d start by looking first where you store all your memories of the Weaselette.”

Potter laughs breathily. Draco ignores it. He looks ahead, teetering along with Potter in tow.

“Listen, Malfoy —“

“I know what you’re going to say. I, in fact, do not want to hear it.”

“You’re in denial.”

“I could just drop you here and leave you to pass out and choke on your own vomit. Someone else can come scrape your corpse off the animal print floor. It’s the easy way out.”

“You know, Malfoy,” Potter says, and it sounds awfully philosophical without actually saying anything at all. He trips on the same wrinkle in the carpeting that Draco had, nearly sending them both plummeting to the floor. Draco has an excellent center of balance, however. “You say some weird shit.”

Draco rolls his eyes so far he thinks they see the inside of his brain, where even his neurons are irritated by Potter. “Very insightful,” he grits out.

“You kissed me back.”

“Not for long.” Draco swallows thickly, feeling his Adam’s apple bob in his throat. It feels strange to reference it, admit to it. It feels like a confession, though Potter already knew.

“Did you pretend I was Blaise?”

Draco abruptly lets go of Potter’s wrist so he goes tumbling to the floor on limp legs. Potter rolls onto his back, apparently finding it all very amusing, and grins lazily up at Draco. Draco feigns innocence, standing beside his spreadeagled body with his arms crossed over his chest. He can’t see much of Potter, but there’s just enough visibility to notice that Potter rights his stupid glasses on his nose and then wraps his fingers around Draco’s ankle. “Oops,” says Draco belatedly. He raises his eyebrows. “You couldn’t pass for Blaise even if you Polyjuiced into him.” It’s true. And… not necessarily an insult to Potter. Blaise had a very distinct way of kissing Draco. Almost lazy, because he’d seen past Draco’s facade of indifference, had recognized that Draco would always, always open his arms for him, his mouth, his legs. He’d squeeze Draco’s arse as he kissed him, and then Draco would either fall to his knees or bend right over. That was all he’d known, and all he’d wanted at the time. No. He would recognize Potter had he been a Polyjuiced Blaise. Potter had been fervent but gentle, he’d caressed Draco’s face, touched his thumb to Draco’s mouth like he’d been tenderly tearing apart the segments of a clementine. Draco tries to shake his ankle out of his grasp.

“Malfoy,” says Potter lowly, distantly from the floor. He sounds like he’s close to nodding off.

“Good grief. _No_ ,” Draco says adamantly, falling to a squat. “No. You will not fall asleep, Potter.” He gives Potter a light slap to the cheek in hopes that it’ll keep him conscious. “You will get off your hammered arse and walk out there so we can Portkey to Lapland, where you’ll fall face-flat into five feet of snow. I guarantee you’ll feel awake after that.” He plucks Potter’s fingers off his ankle one by one and then takes him by the arm, putting all of his weight behind hauling Potter to his feet. Potter complies, somewhat, because he clambers up, but then the law of inertia has Potter diving headfirst toward Draco’s chest. Draco is stealthy, and he grabs Potter by his muscular arms, twisting him around and propelling him toward the gap in the drapes where a bit of the golden light from the main room bleeds through. Potter, miraculously, doesn’t fall. He might be good for something yet. Draco follows, digging his fingers into the middle of Potter’s back between his shoulder blades, which protrude slightly from the ‘Deutschland’ shirt, to push him forth. When he shoves Potter into the curtain and then delicately lifts it for himself, it’s only to find that the room is devoid of Blaise, Pansy, and anyone in their party troupe. Draco closes his eyes, fingers clenching in the back of Potter’s shirt the same way his jaw does. “Fuck,” he whispers, palming his wand from his sleeve to check the time again. “ _Fuck_.” Potter smiles in a daze at a dancer wiping down a pole nearby. She notices the attention, makes a show of it. There’s no wall for Draco to slam his head into anywhere, only drapes, lots and lots of pink drapes, so he drops his forehead to Potter’s shoulder. “Fuck.”

Potter snaps out of his trance at the contact, turns to look at Draco from the corner of his eye. “What’re you on about?”

“We missed the Portkey. Missed the — missed the goddamn Portkey,” Draco whines. He won’t throw a tantrum, though. He counts to five, releases his grip on Potter’s shirt, and then straightens his spine, subjecting Potter to a nasty scowl. “This is your fault. This is completely your fault, you drunken buffoon. If I hadn’t had to —“ The dancer wiping down the pole casts Draco a wary look. His nostrils flare and he latches onto Potter’s arm — Potter, who still hasn’t seemed to comprehend that they’re trapped in France — and starts toward the exit with him in tow.

“Did we?” asks Potter aloofly, just as Draco’s shouldering through the doors into the brisk, outside air, and he fucking chuckles into Draco’s ear. “Was bound to happen at some point, y’know. That you'd leave someone behind. This whole trip was pretty ambitious. If you hadn’t lost track’a time —“

No wizard on the dark, near-empty street cares enough to look their way as Draco drags Potter along. They’re on the Boulevard des Galantes in Wizarding Paris, which Draco luckily knows like the back of his hand. He flicks his wand to send a mild Stinging Hex to Potter’s thigh, which ends up being counterproductive, because that leg crumples under Potter, who yowls in pain. “I am, and was, very on top of things. I had an itinerary, I had authorized Portkeys, I made sure there wasn’t a country on the tour that didn’t have a fucking swarm of minimally-clothed witches to Blaise’s liking. It was you had to go and beg that poor wench to roleplay Lord Voldemort with you —“

“What the fuck, Malfoy?” Potter’s gasping, not because he’s surprised, but because Draco’s moving too fast for him. “I’m not — into that. Whatever that means. Where are we going?”

“L’Hôtel Perenelle,” Draco supplies. “I’ll figure out what to do in the morning. Or, rather, once you’ve slept this off.”

Draco sees Potter frown from the corner of his eye, but instead of commenting on their night’s accommodations like Draco was waiting for him to — it’s a bloody fantastic, highly-rated hotel, is what it is — Potter smacks a palm to his own forehead. “Fuck,” he swears quietly. “What ‘m I doing? I’m supposed to be on duty. Patrollin’ you. Protectin’ you. Any lunatic could jump out at you on these streets.”

Draco rolls his eyes. “Yes, Auror Potter. It’s been long established that you’re completely incapacitated. Congratulations. You did that to yourself.” At a revolving door framed by two elephant topiaries, both happily flapping their ears, Draco nudges Potter ahead of himself. The door opens to a lobby with a ceiling so high it’s barely within sight, though numerous chandeliers hang from it, butterflies and songbirds flitting about them. He directs Potter into an armchair, hurries to the desk to book a room on the tab for ‘Malfoy,’ and returns to Potter in a matter of minutes, hauling him up by the arm once again to lead him toward the lifts. Potter’s gazing about in awe, and Draco supposes he might be, too, had he not seen the Perenelle’s lobby uncountably many times. Everything is gleaming white marble or gilded gold. Potter cranes out a hand to try and catch a poor butterfly as it flutters past. “Shacklebolt better bestow on me a fucking Order of Merlin when I return you to England in one piece. Second class, at the very least,” Draco mutters. He remains comfortably drunk himself, as one usually is after five straight hours of drinking, and perhaps that’s what’s slightly dulling his temper with regards to Potter’s idiocy.

“All you’re doing is pushing me around,” Potter points out in the lift. Draco hadn’t even realized he’d been listening, so that’s a pleasant surprise in itself.

Draco turns toward Potter as he drops his arms to his sides. “Yes. And what would your brilliant plan have been upon noticing the absence of our party? Disarm someone, perhaps the pitiable girl you’d fallen asleep on before she could even get your cock out of your trousers? I hear it’s your signature move.”

It takes Potter a moment to process that, and by then, they’ve reached the thirty-sixth floor. Draco usually prefers to reside at least above the fiftieth, but given the last-minute reservation, it’s not terrible. “Getting my cock out is my signature move?” asks Potter in a daze, and that time Draco leaves him behind in the elevator, striding off down the hall. From the sound of the lazy footsteps behind him, Potter’s following, much to both his disappointment and sick amusement.

“That, too.” Draco stops in front of room 3664, waves his wand in a slow arc over the phoenix-claw door knocker, and the sound of the lock clicking in response satisfies him. He pushes inside, gestures dramatically for Potter to follow because he’s dawdling. The door shuts behind Potter, which seems to startle him. Draco points a finger at the king bed. “Please indulge me and sleep.” Then he locks himself into the toilet, sinks onto the closed toilet seat, and knots his fingers into his hair as he releases a shaky breath he’s been holding for a good half an hour.

He looks as much of a mess as he feels, Draco realizes, when he peers into the mirror. His hair is wind-blown though it wasn’t windy outside and he feels like he might hurl. He does, eventually.

When Draco emerges from the toilet, Potter has shed his ‘Deutschland’ shirt… for the most part. He’s peacefully asleep on the bed despite the fact that his wrist dangles limply through one arm hole and his glasses are askew and his neck is still within the confines of the shirt.

Draco toes out of his shoes so it’s easier to tiptoe. He doesn’t think Potter would necessarily awaken if he didn’t, but he does it anyway. He’s moving mechanically, in a way, as he takes Potter’s glasses from his face, folds them neatly, and sets them on the nightstand. He holds Potter’s wrist with one hand and frees it with the other, after which he tugs the shirt over his head, careful not to jostle him. Draco peers over his shoulder, as if someone might be watching, and then climbs onto the opposite side of the mattress. He’s slept just a wall away — albeit a heavily spelled wall — from Potter for weeks now, and yet this feels different. Or maybe it’s Draco who feels different, because he’s just emptied his stomach of his last few meals and his skin and brain tingle with the fuzziness of lightheadedness. He sits with his legs crossed compactly beneath him, eyes scanning Potter’s chest a second time since Berlin. He can smell the beer on his chest hair that was never wiped off before Frieda had him clad in a new top, and it’s disgusting. Not enough for Draco to cast _Scourgify_ , though, or to prevent thoughts of touching it from running through his mind. He thinks of Blaise, because he thinks he should. If the time on the grandfather clock ticking away by the writing desk is correct, and if the troupe has stayed on schedule, they’ll just be leaving Lapland for Copenhagen. Blaise will like the Danish witches. He wonders just how it’s possible that Potter’s lips are so pink, his eyelashes so long. The way they lay against his cheeks reminds him of Pansy’s. It must be weird, mustn’t it? Having one’s eyelashes tap one’s cheeks at every blink? Draco touches his own face, trying to picture it. His own are short and blond and nearly invisible. He slumps down onto the bed a safe distance away from Potter and stares at the ornate ceiling. In the painted images, little angels flutter their wings and shoot their heart-shaped arrows. Just to make it a tad safer, he goes about propping up a wall of pillows between him and Potter. Then he shuts his eyes.

***

Potter is snoring when Draco comes to. The pillow barrier still stands, and as Draco prides himself on his construction abilities, he absolutely does not look in Potter’s direction on his way to the toilet.

Draco doesn’t feel very clean despite scrubbing himself down in the shower, because he’s back in his previous day’s clothes. No cleaning spell can beat the feeling of fresh laundry. As he dries his hair and traipses from the toilet, he stops short, because Potter’s blinking awake. It’s just his instinct, apparently, to reach for the nearest level surface to ungracefully pat around for his glasses. Draco very nearly reaches for his wand to send them flying high speed at Potter’s face before his fingers finally curl around them.

Potter’s eyes go from the towel in Draco’s hands down to his own bare chest, and then to the rumpled spot on the sheets beside him where Draco had slept. “Fuck,” he breathes, sitting up so quickly he’s visibly ill. “Did we shag last night?”

Draco chokes on air and drops the towel to the floor. He whisks it off the ground, squinting at Potter. “What? Don’t be ridiculous,” he says vigorously.

“Oh. Thank fuck.” Potter collapses back against the mattress, rubbing his eyes raw beneath his glasses. Draco’s fully aware that his own cheeks are burning, but a knock on the door saves him. He turns away from Potter to unlock the door, and an unmanned cart laden with coffee, tea, pastries, and fresh bread rolls into the room. He remembers trips to Paris from his youth when the Perenelle’s pains-au-chocolat had been the highlight. He slams the door shut and follows the cart, hands on his hips.

“Is it really such a relief? Would it have been such terrible news?” he finds himself huffing, turning a dainty cup over so he can pour himself steaming coffee.

“What?” mumbles Potter. Idiot.

“Shagging me.” Draco reaches for his wand to cool down the coffee to a palatable temperature.

It’s Potter’s turn to choke on absolutely nothing. In Draco’s peripheral vision, he sits up against his elbows, presumably looking in Draco's direction. Draco drops two spoonfuls of sugar into his coffee. “No,” Potter says slowly. “Just would’ve liked to have remembered.”

Draco leaves his wand to stir at his coffee and opens the doors to the balcony. He’s thankful his top covers most of his neck because he can feel it go hot at Potter's words. It’s a pretty grand view of Paris, even if mildly obscured by the distortion of the wards and Disillusionment Charms that hide the hotel’s far-reaching storeys from the view of Muggles. “But I don’t like you,” he says a bit snidely, just because he’s suddenly embarrassed and regrets allowing Potter to live after asking such a moronic question. _‘Did we shag last night?’_ “Why would we have shagged? And you were off your face. As if I’d take advantage of you like that. As if I’d want to.” He reaches for his coffee, but when it’s halfway to his mouth, he feels warm fingers curl around his waist. He’s afraid to swallow at first, afraid to even breathe, and the coffee cup trembles just barely between his fingers. He’s not necessarily _afraid_ of anything, though. After all he's seen, Draco feels like nothing could genuinely scare him ever again. If not fear, though, he’s not sure how else to describe the goosebumps rising on his arms.

“You don’t have to like someone to shag them,” Potter points out lightly right beside Draco’s ear. Then, a pause, and, “Thanks for getting me here last night, Malfoy.”

Draco clears his throat and slowly lowers the coffee cup back down to the tray. They’ve had far too many accidents with liquids in small vessels, the two of them, and Draco refuses to be the next victim to a coffee-stained crotch. “That’s right. Thank me. I don’t suppose you remember a thing, so you have no idea what I went through to make this happen. Obstacle after obstacle. They were trying to kidnap you to carve out your forehead scar and put it on display in a museum. It’s a miracle we’re both alive. Likely wouldn’t be, were it not for my valiance and resourcefulness.” He folds his arms over his chest, continues to stare resolutely at the almost aerial view of Paris. He could probably stare at the magnificence forever if Potter didn’t now have both of his hands on Draco’s waist, and if he wasn’t chuckling quietly behind him.

“Who’s ‘they’?” asks Potter dryly.

Draco bats his hand at the air absently. “How should I know? You’ve many enemies.” He tilts his chin down slightly to watch Potter’s palms slide around so his fingers dig gently into Draco’s stomach, making his nerves jolt. After a second of barely getting air to his brain, Draco pushes Potter’s wrists off, twirling around to shove him back by the chest. It’s a good thing, too, because he’d been closer than Draco had realized. “What do you think you’re doing?” he snaps. His eyes flicker down to Potter’s red boxers. Fucking Gryffindor. And when had he managed to take off his trousers?

“Nothing,” Potter claims, and _ha_ , Draco’s heard that one before. Potter’s hands are raised in surrender, but there’s still something devious about the innocent smile on his face.

Draco’s lips twist into a frown. He puts his hand to Potter’s bare chest and urges him back a few steps more for good measure. “That wasn’t _nothing_. You touched me. Why?”

Potter drops his arms and places his hands on hips. “Why should you listen to anything I say? You don’t like me.”

“I don’t.” Draco lifts his chin just slightly. “You’re right. I don’t care what you have to say.”

Potter shrugs. “Okay, well. I’m still sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” Draco’s brows draw together, his patience falling hard and fast.

“For touching you. You clearly didn’t want me to.”

“I didn’t ask you to bloody apologize. You don’t have to apologize for every stupid thing you do, otherwise you’d never shut up.”

Potter takes a step back so he can lean against the wall, because apparently his own two feet can’t hold him up while he laughs. He’s _laughing_. _At_ Draco. “Fuck me, your logic is so circular, it’s like a snake eating its own tail —“

Draco glares. And then something, something demonic and _Dark_ — it _must_ be, because there’s no other explanation — possesses Draco, and he lunges forward, his hands clasping onto Potter’s jaw as he presses his mouth to his. And he doesn’t taste like sick and sour, so he must’ve cast a spell at some point that went unnoticed. His fingertips are still cupping Potter’s stubbly face as he draws back hesitantly and their lips part with a soft smack. Draco avoids Potter’s eyes, but that just means he sees a wry smirk curve on his pink mouth.

Then Potter frowns thoughtfully. “Not bad.”

Draco gapes indignantly, and he’s still staring at Potter’s lips, still holding his jaw, still close enough to feel Potter’s warm breath against his own mouth. “Oh, and Mystery Brunette is so much better?”

Potter’s fingers snake underneath Draco’s top and squeeze at his bare waist. “Don’t worry about it,” he mutters, and before Draco can protest _“I’m not fucking worrying,”_ Potter draws him in by the waist so they’re flush together, and he tilts his chin up so their lips connect again. Draco’s eyelids flutter shut, Potter’s bare skin burns through Draco’s shirt, and he bites at Potter’s lower lip. It seems to trigger something in Potter, because then Draco’s feet are off the ground and he’s forced to lock his arms around Potter’s neck, hands hoisting his arse up almost possessively. Draco pants against his mouth, heart thrumming speedily in his chest, and then the door to the balcony slams behind him, at which point his eyes swiftly follow Potter’s extended arm toward it.

“Did you just —? I’ve never seen you do wandless —“ Draco sputters, bewildered.

“Only when I’m showing off,” says Potter with a grin, and _fuck_ , if that doesn’t make a strange sort of heat roil in the pit of Draco’s stomach.

“You egotistical bastard — _Potter_!” Draco hisses as Potter lifts and shoves him up onto the bed. His eyes go wide as Potter climbs up over him, and he crawls backward and away until Potter’s hands on the mattress above his shoulders lock him into place.He gets a chance to catch his breath, because Potter’s just looking at him, and Draco lets his head loll back. He can appreciate a good view when he has one. Potter’s thighs, muscular from Quidditch and Merlin knows what else, press into the sides of his own. He’s a bit broader than he’d been in school, and the dark hair on his chest trails alluringly into his briefs. He’s not repulsed, which is disconcerting at the very least. Draco shuts his eyes. He’s overwhelmed. He’s snogged Clemence, sure, he’s snogged countless people, but if his own right hand doesn’t count, the last person he’s been naked with is Blaise. But — he’s not even naked. Yet. _Fuck_. He’s getting ahead of himself.

When Draco cracks his eyes open, Potter’s waiting expectantly. Draco narrows his eyes. “What do you want?” he asks blankly, and in response, Potter gives him that smile he’s now prone to giving Draco when he doesn’t intend on fighting back. Draco’s heart rate shoots up again when Potter leans down to kiss at the side of his neck. Draco exhales a shudder, his long fingers hesitantly curling around the back of Potter’s neck. Potter’s mouth is soft and wet and warm until his teeth dig in and his stubble scratches Draco’s skin, and he inhales sharply, lips parting in a silent noise. He hasn’t even realized it, but his arms have twined around Potter’s neck and his knee is trying to find purchase hooking over Potter’s hip, his muscles feeling numb and gelatinous, as if he’s melting into the mattress. “Nngh, don’t do that,” Draco breathes, so Potter licks along the underside of his jaw instead.

“No?” he mutters against Draco’s jawbone.

“Yes,” whispers Draco, letting his fingers trail over the rippling muscles in Potter’s shoulders.

“Yes?” Potter echoes again, and Draco can see that he’s not even trying to suppress his amusement, so he smacks him on the back of the head. Potter doesn’t even flinch, just pulls down the high collar of Draco’s shirt to kiss him there, too.

“Fuck off. This is never happening again. Enjoy this while you can.” Draco’s efforts to not sound so affected are in vain. “And I’m not touching your cock. We’ve just had a grand tour of Europe’s trollops.”

“You calling me dirty, Malfoy?”

“Yes, you prat.”

Potter sits back and away, and Draco practically whines at the loss of contact, but it’s just because Potter’s stripping him of his shirt. Which — okay. Draco’s not ashamed of his body, except for the hideous tattoo on his left arm, but the thought of Potter seeing so much of him feels like sharing a secret he's kept to himself for years. He goes momentarily blind as the black material is tugged over his head, and he lifts his arms to let it happen. He’s worried that Potter can tell how wired he is, how regretful he is that he’d kissed him five minutes ago — not because he hadn’t wanted it, which is frightening in itself, or because it hadn’t been good, but because standing by the balcony, sipping his coffee, grousing about Potter is so much less stressful than being laid out before him like this.

Potter’s voice interrupts Draco’s thoughts. “You don’t have to.” Don’t have to what? Draco’s eyes are still open as Potter kisses him briskly on the mouth in a way that leaves his lips slack and his face warm, and then he’s putting his mouth to Draco’s chest. He’s not sure which his hotter, his own skin, Potter’s cheeks, or the drag of his tongue over Draco’s nipple and the valleys between his ribs, or the soft noises of suction as Potter’s mouth trails down his torso. Draco’s muscles twitch involuntarily, and his hands, lying prone and useless against the mattress, make their way into Potter’s hair. It doesn’t feel so much like a bird’s nest as it looks. It’s soft. Potter dips his tongue into Draco’s navel, kissing it sweetly, like he’s tasting him there, of all the sensitive places on Draco’s body, and Draco’s toes curl, his neck arching away from the bed. Potter’s chin digs into his tummy, right above the waistband of his trousers, and Draco twitches at this, peering down at Potter’s face. He’s not even teasing, though. Potter curls his fingers into both Draco’s trousers and underwear simultaneously. He’s asking permission. For what, Draco’s not sure. It could be a number of things. He finds he doesn’t care what it is. He’ll take anything. He nods vaguely, at a loss for words for one of the few times in his life, and then Potter’s rolling him over onto his stomach, only then peeling off Draco’s remaining clothes.

It’s terrifying. He’s cold and exposed and untouched. Draco swallows hard, presses his forehead to the backs of his wrists, inhaling and not letting it out. The light that’s able to reach his eyes grows dim, though, as the bed dips around him, because Potter's crawling over him. His lips go to the junction of Draco’s neck and shoulder, his chest, radiating heat, brushes against Draco’s back, and he’s still got his briefs on, but he’s hard and pressing right into the cleft of Draco’s arse. Draco’s blood is pumping at double speed through his veins, and he hooks an arm around at an awkward angle to latch onto the back of Potter’s neck, holding him close while he twists his head a bit, looks at him from the corner of his eye. He hates himself through and through when Potter licks the corner of Draco’s mouth, and he _smiles_ in response, he helplessly smiles _,_ because it’s gross and Potter is gross and _fuck_ , of course he would.

“What’re you gonna do?” Draco murmurs, nails biting into Potter’s neck. His eyes roll back into his head a bit as Potter kisses where he’s just licked, and as he runs a calloused palm over Draco’s side, feeling him, squeezing his skin or muscle wherever he can.

“Eat you,” Potter says into the shell of his ear. Draco’s knees spread unconsciously, arching up against Potter. “Will you let me?” _Yes_. He doesn’t say it at first. Blaise had never done that for him. Nobody has. But nothing right then sounds better than Potter’s damn tongue. “I’ve wanted to. For a while.”

“Fucking do it, then.”

Potter doesn’t hesitate, slipping from Draco’s grasp. He starts at the unblemished skin between Draco’s shoulder blades, though, because he apparently can’t do anything without a proper show. His palms are on Draco’s arse, squeezing, spreading him apart, rolling the heels of his hands into them, and Draco’s breaths go high, higher the lower that Potter’s tongue trails on his back, the lower the grazes of his teeth to the knobs of Draco’s spine get.

“Did you know you have a freckle —?” Potter mumbles into his skin, and Draco groans dramatically as his fingers clench around the sheets.

“Shut _up_! Shouldn’t your sodding mouth be a little busy right now?”

“Just taking my time. You said I should enjoy this,” Potter retorts with a chuckle in his voice. Draco exhales deeply and ignores his jocular tone. His eyes crack open and he gazes at Potter’s wand on the rumpled sheets beside him, and he’s just showered, but still, well, _precautions_ , so he reaches for it, palming the handle and muttering under his breath. A shiver shoots through his body. If Potter notices, he doesn’t say anything, but perhaps he’s only silent because he’s kissing Draco’s tailbone, and then, with a crude neglect for elegant sexual spellwork, he’s sucking on his fingers and dragging his thumb over Draco’s hole with nonexistent pressure. Draco’s lying prostrate for Harry Potter, who’s much closer to Draco’s arse than he’d ever thought he’d be. He almost wishes he could send a postcard of the moment to the Dark Lord.

Draco’s muscles seize up the moment Potter circles his hole with his tongue and prods it gently inside. And then his face blooms with color, because he knows Potter’s thinking what Draco is, too.

“Did you —?” Potter starts.

“Yes. Yes, I did, alright?”

“While I was in the other fucking room?” Potter demands, exasperated, as if he’s jealous of the hotel room shower.

“Yes,” Draco hisses. “Makes your life a bit easier. So sod off.”

“Hm,” Potter hums, fingers digging into the meat of Draco’s arse as he experimentally presses his tongue in again and draws it out. Twat. “Wouldn’t have minded doing it myself. Still wouldn’t, actually.” Potter lays his scratchy cheek against Draco’s bum as he suckles noisily on his finger, which Draco kicks him gently with his heel for, but then all is forgotten when Potter’s finger pushes past his rim. He gasps throatily, shoulders tensing and rising from the bed as his nails dig into his own scalp. Yes, he’d gotten himself off in the shower on his fingers not long ago, and apparently Potter can tell. Draco doesn’t have the decency to act embarrassed any longer, however, because Potter’s fingers are gentle but curious and he fondles Draco’s balls as he adds a second finger, scissoring him open. He’s kissing wetly at Draco’s rim, too, licking between his fingers, and his mouth sounds obscene and Draco’s so, so fucking hard where his cock rubs against the soft sheets. He almost can’t believe he’d slept there, fully-clothed, separated from Potter by a wall of pillows, and now he’s laid bare, hairline damp with sweat, dripping wet because of Potter’s mouth. He moans shrilly, biting his lip so he won’t speak the name on his tongue, and it feels so easy to roll his hips the way Potter’s hand is guiding him to — humping the sheets, fucking back onto his fingers. Draco muffles a swear when Potter’s fingers leave him, the air of the room suddenly cold against his spit-slick arse as he clenches around absolutely nothing.

“Please.” His mouth moves before his brain can give it consent to, voice muffled against the sheets. “Fuck, Potter, _please_.”

And the bastard laughs quietly, his wet fingers dragging across Draco’s arse to his hip and pressing underneath his body to wrap around his cock. “Merlin, you’re…” Potter starts to say, but if he finishes, Draco doesn’t hear it, because then Potter’s licking a stripe over Draco’s hole, circling it with his tongue, and pressing it back into him again. His other hand has an iron grip on Draco’s hipbone, and he’s licking into him while he jerks him off — it’s sloppy, it’s unsteady, it’s too much. And Draco clings to that feeling. He’s captive to it.

He comes harder than he can last remember, all over Potter’s hand and his own stomach. Perhaps harder than ever, but the first time Blaise had fucked him had been rather earth-shattering. It doesn’t matter, though. He’s too spent to soliloquize about Potter’s expert arse-eating abilities. His muscles go weak against the mattress, everything falling that can possibly fall to the sheets, leaving his shoulders hiked up while his neck hangs limp between them like a prowling lion's. He can’t feel his toes, but he also hasn’t tried to move them. “Fuck,” he whispers to himself, and for a brief moment, he almost forgets that Potter is there. Then he receives a soft kiss to his tailbone, the warm contact extracting itself from his body slowly, and there follows a silence until the bed creaks as Potter moves. Draco dares to crack his eyes open and peer through his hanging fringe toward Potter, who’s sitting up against the abundant pillows beside Draco, legs crossed, and eyeing him right back as he wipes at his mouth with the back of a come-smeared hand. It’s lewd in a way Draco doesn’t want to admit liking. Potter’s lips curl up at the corners. This has Draco rolling his eyes and smushing his face back into the sheets.

“Don’t say a word,” he warns.

“Or what?” Potter asks, clearing his throat.

“Just — nobody can know.”

“What? Are you _ashamed_ of me, Malfoy?”

Draco lifts his head and props himself up on his elbows, narrowing his eyes at Potter. “You’re joking, right?”

Potter’s head tilts back with a laugh and he claps his hands onto his thighs. “Right. Nobody will know,” he promises smilingly. There’s a smudge of spunk by the corner of his mouth. Draco’s spunk. Draco follows the motion of his hands, too, to Potter’s tanned legs, where his hair is dark and wiry and there’s a massive fucking bulge at the front of his boxers. Draco’s lips part unconsciously, and he thinks Potter notices this, because he shifts so that his hips are canted just a few degrees more in Draco’s direction. He looks away, rubs his sweaty palms over his face.

“Might just go take care of this in the shower, if you don’t mind,” murmurs Potter. Draco doesn’t look. Potter is _hung_ , and he’s worried that if Potter gets up from the bed, Draco won’t be able to look away as his cock shifts in his tight, Gryffindor-red boxers.

“Why would I mind? I certainly didn’t consult you before I did,” he answers.

Potter hums. “Still mad about that,” he says reflectively, and Draco listens to his feet touch down on the floor. Potter pads away to the toilet and the door closes behind him. Draco has hardly moved an inch since he came all over himself, and peeling the sheets off his body is a process. Only once he’s found his wand, finished his reheated cup of coffee, managed to restore his hygiene somewhat, and clothed himself does he open the doors to the balcony once more. His hands grasp onto the doorframe to hold himself up as he stares out at Paris. It’s mid-afternoon there, which means that if Pansy hasn’t let the troupe off the rails, they’re in Warsaw, and then will be in Antwerp within the next hour. It isn’t too far, Draco supposes. But he’s worried now that if he so much as looks Pansy in the eye, she’ll be able to read _I kissed Harry Potter and then he ate me out like it wasn’t his destiny to save the Wizarding World but to eat my arse and I liked it_ from his gaze. Then again, he doesn’t want to warrant suspicion by extending their disappearance. The shower turns on in the depths of their hotel room, and Draco shuts his eyes, letting the light breeze ruffle his drooping fringe against his lashes. He’s gotten Potter out of his system, he thinks. He doesn’t know precisely when he’d entered Draco’s system and carved out an annoying, Potter-shaped hole in there, but he’s been evicted. It can’t happen again.

He breathes deeply. He’s ashamed, isn’t he? Draco’s toes are curled anxiously into the rug, and he wills them to relax. He’d gotten more than a kiss’s worth — and he didn’t have to lift a finger. Potter took care of him. But when the weekend is over, Draco will return diligently to his responsibilities; last-minute wedding preparations, preparing the Wigton home for showings, demanding overdue paperwork of the lazy scumbags called law enforcement at the Auror Headquarters, and living covertly in Potter’s home. The arrangement isn’t normal, but it sounds a lot more normal than Draco feels in the moment. He’s baffled, he realizes, by the difference one misplaced night can make in the grand scheme of things. It’s a similar feeling to when he’d finally fixed the Vanishing Cabinet, effectively instigating the death of one of the most powerful wizards of their time. Everything had changed after that one night.

But now he’s just being dramatic. Potter’s mouth can’t be that life-altering. Draco won’t spend years of regret and reform excommunicated from society because he and Potter had gone at it. Simply put, it won’t happen again.


	11. Chapter 11

“Would you stop whistling?”

Harry’s joyful tune stops short. With his lips still pursed, he glances at Malfoy, whose slender fingers are white at the knuckles as he grips the edge of his seat. He’s avoiding Harry’s eyes with intent, but also avoiding the window on his other side, so instead he stares ahead like a horse wearing blinders.

The train to Antwerp is not too different to the Hogwarts Express — aside, of course, from the fact that it’s barreling along its tracks at high speed with hardly a sound, and he and Malfoy aren’t together in an intimate compartment, but instead packed into a car with numerous Muggles conversing in French.

“Sorry,” Harry says belatedly, and he is, just a little bit, but not for whistling. He laces his fingers together in his lap and smiles absently at the toddler in the lap of the lady across the aisle. It’s Malfoy who the little girl is watching, though, gripping her upended Barbie by its leg as she stares curiously at Malfoy. Not unreasonably. He looks on the verge of a meltdown.

Harry, on the other hand, hasn’t felt this good in weeks. Sure, Malfoy’s hardly spoken a word to him since that morning, or even glanced in his direction, for that matter, but Harry has a feeling he’ll get over it. When he thinks of the way Malfoy had mewled for him and _succumbed_ , _pleaded_ , it becomes a internal battle not to get hard on the spot. It only strengthens Harry’s claim, too, that Malfoy is deeply in denial.

Malfoy had curtly notified Harry after his shower that Blaise’s posse would be in Antwerp, where they would catch up with them, until the late afternoon.

“Portkey, then?” Harry had asked, toweling off his hair. Malfoy had been white as the sheets he sat against.

“No. I didn’t register an emergency Portkey from Paris to Antwerp, having expected that at precisely this moment you would have finally come out of your drunken stupor after last night's shenanigans.”

Harry had hesitated, but only momentarily. “I’m an Auror, Malfoy, I’m sure I can —“

“Certainly not. You will not do anything dubiously legal and implicate me in it. Some of us wouldn’t get off scot-free,” Malfoy had muttered, shooting down Harry’s idea before it’d… even had a chance to be an idea. “We’ll take Muggle transport.”

Harry had been doubtful, to say the least, that Malfoy realized he would be spending several hours on a train with Harry. He’d been surprised when Malfoy had not only located the train station but bought them tickets with only a slight currency fumble, all the while walking so fast that Harry had nearly lost him thrice in crowds or around street corners. Impressed as Harry had been, Malfoy’s clearly regretting his decision.

“How much longer?” Malfoy asks wearily, shutting his pale-lashed eyes.

“It’s been a quarter of an hour, so… one hour and fifty-six minutes,” Harry answers.

Malfoy groans. He’s up on his feet in an instant, whipping out a handkerchief from Merlin knows where so he can use it to grip onto the handrail above. “Switch seats with me,” he demands.

“What?” Harry asks even though the command registers and hops into the empty seat beside the window so Malfoy can lower himself down into Harry’s original spot. He watches Malfoy sigh and fold his arms over his chest. “Are you ill?”

“No.” Malfoy looks at him for the first time since that morning, gray eyes narrowed. “It’s just… very fast. And overcrowded. And not very clean.” He looks a bit like a Kneazle that’s been shoved into a bathtub against its will. His hair flops over his forehead, clean and shiny and hair-potion-less against the fluorescent light. It falls into his eyes when he cowers over and places his elbows on his knees.

Sympathetically, Harry reaches out to touch the small of Malfoy’s back, but with the speed that Malfoy sits up at the contact, he flinches away like he’s just burnt his fingers.

“What are you doing? Desist. There are people here,” hisses Malfoy. Harry holds up both hands in surrender, exchanging a knowing look with the girl whose Barbie’s skirt hangs over its face. He opens his mouth to apologize to Malfoy, or tease him, or _something_ , but then Malfoy’s face twists, pointy chin scrunching up. “You have jam on your shirt.”

Harry drops his hands, tugs at the belly of his ‘Deutschland’ tee to examine it. Sure enough, he spots a pink stain, without a doubt from his overzealously raspberry-jammy pastry from the coffee cart at the Perenelle. He recalls it fondly. “Well. Look at that,” he murmurs absently, but before he can attempt to — completely justifiably — suck the bit of jam from his shirt, Malfoy flicks his forehead. It’s alarmingly painful. He looks exasperated when Harry glances up at him.

“Potter,” he mutters. When Harry meets his eyes, tongue halfway out of his mouth, Malfoy gives him a withering smile and shakes his head. “Don’t.” Harry lets go of his shirt and leans back into his seat, fingers lacing over his lap. Malfoy will just have to deal with the stain for now. They fall into silence for all of two full minutes until Malfoy speaks again. “When we arrive in Antwerp, you’ll stay away from me. You won’t talk to me, won’t even look at me. Are we clear? You can’t look at me the way you are right now.”

Harry’d been looking out the window, actually, so he frowns at Malfoy. “What way am I looking at you, exactly?”

Malfoy’s eyes narrow and dart briefly to the girl with the Barbie. “Like you’ve made out with my arse,” he hisses, then exhales through his nose as he shifts in his seat. “Pansy is incredibly intuitive. So, much as I know you will be tempted to reflect on the memory, please refrain. She can tell. She already knew something was up the day of the Quidditch match.” Malfoy swallows hard, fingers clenching around his knees.

Harry just lifts an eyebrow. What Malfoy’s saying isn’t false. Something was totally up the day of the Quidditch match, Harry’s dick being one of them. And he had made out with Malfoy’s arse. He hasn’t done that to anyone in ages, so Harry’s willing to cut himself some slack if he has genuinely been mooning over Malfoy since the morning. “Yeah, well, things just got a bit out of hand —“ he attempts to explain, though it’s in vain. He’d lost the Snitch for the first time in months that day. Then he’d practically assaulted Malfoy.

“Things? _Things?_ _You_ were out of hand. You could hardly control yourself once you got a few drinks in you. I should’ve seen this coming from a hectare away, what happened this morning, but no, my Auror protection had to get as off his trolley as he could possibly get.”

Harry exhales shortly. He thinks, with reason, that he should be irritated by Malfoy’s incessant complaints about the past when he’s the one continuing to bring it up. He’s not, though. Harry’s floated through the morning feeling a bit like he’s been Imperiused, everything echoing vaguely around him, reminding him that he is, in fact, moving consciously through reality, a reality in which Malfoy had kissed him of his own accord, then allowed Harry to wreck him with his tongue like he, too, had been thinking about it for weeks. That would undoubtedly be pushing his luck a bit, but it’s a thought nonetheless. “I was sober this morning,” he remarks as he scratches his jaw. “As were you. Don’t even try to pin this on me.” He’s also found that the less Malfoy is able to rile him up with his snide comments, the more an inverse effect kicks in as Malfoy’s fury bubbles over. It’s easy for Harry to dwell in such a headspace, oscillating comfortably between vaguely aroused, vaguely amused, and just a bit confused at their circumstances. Not that he deigns to question it. Fate has a history of backhanding him at both the best and worst of times.

“You — you’re — fuck.” Malfoy’s voice tapers off into a whisper, most likely for the sake of the child, whose eyes remain googly and fixated on him. _He’s right lovely for a big prat, isn’t he?_ Harry wants to ask her. _He’s even lovelier in my arms._ Merlin _._ If he were to speak those words aloud, Harry has a feeling Malfoy would backhand him harder than Fate ever has. Perhaps break his nose again. “Just… act like it never happened. At least around Blaise and Pansy. Please, Potter.” The pleading sounds unnatural coming from Malfoy — not that it shocks him — but it’s also desperate. Malfoy’s back to staring resolutely at his knees.

Harry sighs deeply. “Have you ever thought that maybe this isn’t something I’d want to broadcast to the world, either? Don’t worry. I’ll… keep a level head.” When Malfoy peers at him skeptically, Harry gives the back of his head a sheepish scratch. Levelheadedness has never been his forte. He settles on, “I won’t drink,” which visibly eases the tightness in Malfoy’s shoulders.

“Good. No imbibing. I know the spells to check, too. On too many an occasion has Blaise committed legally questionable acts while under the influence in public places that I’ve come to know the Aurors’ techniques inside and out. So, if I so much as suspect you’re —“

“Yeah, I know. You’ll backhand me,” Harry says dryly. He only realizes that’s a conversation he’s been having with himself when Malfoy looks at him like he’s sprouted a second head. Strangely enough, the confusion yields to an odd, appeased smile, and moments later, Harry takes a wild guess that their conversation about arse-snogging is over as Malfoy returns to his full-time job of clamping at his seat and battling nausea. They don’t speak for the remainder of the trip.

*** 

The stopover in Antwerp is hardly a break from Blaise Zabini’s tittyfest, but to Malfoy’s credit, he does seem to have pulled out all the stops (all but backup in the case of a missed Portkey, of course). Before the group hits Antwerp’s clubs, they’re treated to several hours of massages by scantily-dressed witches in a hotel room well-stocked with hangover potion. The moment it’s offered to Harry, he chugs it down in one go without stopping to breathe. Malfoy smooths his hand over his the chest of his jumper, wrinkles his nose at Harry, but doesn’t say anything.

“There you are, you fuckers,” Zabini calls from across the lavish room. It resembles that of the Perenelle with its trimmed curtains, elaborate rugs, and dark, wooden furniture. Goyle, whose skin is tinged a wan sort of green, lies passed out on the closest bed. Either passed out or dead. Zabini is on his stomach on a massage table across the room from them, arms folded under his chin, his voice wobbling as a witch in a terrycloth headband, a small white top and small white shorts pounds her hands into his back. “I wouldn’t’ve let you pussy out on me so early on. Would’ve come and — _fuck_ , right there, Delphine — dragged your arses here myself.”

“No need for arse-dragging. We made do,” Malfoy mutters, then grabs a glass bottle of the blue-tinged potion from the tray by the door before all too casually leaving Harry’s side and waltzing into the toilet. Harry nearly darts his hand out to latch onto him, keep him there, which is just fucking ridiculous of him. Perhaps he should lay down, too, and let Delphine smack some sense into him.

Parkinson, looking fresh as she had the night before and outwardly unaffected by inordinate alcohol consumption, appears in Harry’s peripheral vision before she tugs him down onto a mustard-yellow chesterfield. “Afternoon, Potter,” she says without looking at him. She floats a compact mirror in front of her, and Harry can’t deny that it’s slightly mesmerizing to watch her morph the color on her lips in the reflection. She settles on a raspberry red and the mirror vanishes, and then her catlike eyes are fixed on Harry as she lays both her arms along the back of the couch. Her pink lips twist into a smirk. “You’re alive,” she says slowly. Harry realizes he’s awkwardly rigid, and that this is just fucking Pansy Parkinson, with whom he’s worked for years. He tries to get comfortable against the sofa, but Pansy’s stare makes it feel like rock rather than supple leather. “Draco’s alive.”

“Have you always been this observant?” Harry tries, lips quirking up at the corners.

A peek of Pansy’s teeth show through her smirk as she reaches out to tweak Harry’s cheek. “Don’t be cheeky, love,” she reprimands. He doesn’t recall if Legilimency is one of Pansy’s many talents. Only that Occlumency is one of his own greatest weaknesses. She watches him carefully, and Harry notes with relief that he can’t feel her invading his mind. Yet. “He’s got it bad for Blaise,” Pansy says slowly, analytically, crossing her legs and drumming her long nails against the leather of the sofa by Harry’s shoulder. “Yet you’re brilliant at getting under his skin. Brilliant enough to overshadow Blaise, though? I’m not sure.” She takes him in critically with her eyes narrowed to slits. It’s awfully dramatic. “You look happy. Then again, you’re always happy. Whenever you’re not irrationally angry, that is.”

Harry doesn’t appreciate the full-on dissection of his character, however accurate it may be. He feels like Pansy’s got on Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes’ Secret Stripping Specs that could see through up to three layers of clothing. George had had to stop producing them the very day they’d hit the market, having been extraordinarily popular for all of five hours until legal repercussions ensued. Perhaps Pansy had managed to acquire a contact lens version?

Malfoy doesn’t give Harry a chance to reply. He’s returned from the toilet, looking less queasy than he had on the train and with his hair smoothed into place. “Is she terrorizing you, Potter? I should report you both to the DMLE for lousy conduct. I do wonder what the gossip rags will say when it gets out that the Chosen Dickhead and the volatile, ex-Slytherin Metamorphmagus have been carousing on the job and sinning in every country under the Ministry’s alliance,” Malfoy mutters in passing behind the couch, but doesn’t get very far, because Pansy grabs hold of his arm and yanks him over the back of the couch so he careens into their laps, his knee knocking into Harry’s head and sending his glasses flying in the process. It’s a rather perfunctory movement. Harry knows she’s strong, has seen her tie with Ron at arm-wrestling — they challenge each other at it far too often — but now he’s also aware that Malfoy is light for how tall he is. Harry _Accio_ s his glasses wandlessly into the palm of his hand while Malfoy wriggles furiously against the two of them until he’s finally lost contact with Harry, though he’s trapped against Pansy’s chest as she hugs him around the neck like a teddy bear. He’s facing Harry and not her breasts, however, and Malfoy gives him a disdainful look. Harry places his glasses back onto his nose and holds his hands up innocently. None of this was his plan.

“I’m not _on the job_ , you skinny git,” says Pansy as she smooths Malfoy’s hair back into place post-tousle. “Potter’s the one that’s technically on duty. I’ve the weekend off, as does Weasley. I’m not missing anything. If I was arrested, you would be, too.”

Malfoy continues to gaze at Harry with a disgruntled look. “Mm,” he hums eventually, crossing his legs so his ankle lays across his knee. It reminds Harry of The Handmaiden, of how Malfoy had sat that way beside him, when he’d been warm and clad in a Weasley Christmas jumper and had downed Harry’s beer like a dying man in the desert. Or perhaps his memory has embellished that scene for him slightly. There’s at least a foot of space between them now, though. “What’s Weasley up to, then, Potter? We should’ve asked him along. Pansy would’ve —“ Malfoy coughs and chokes on his words, and judging by the twitch of Pansy’s arm muscles around his neck, it’s entirely intentional. “You bitch!” he squawks once she eases up, but doesn’t move from his relaxed pose against her bosom. Harry raises an eyebrow and rubs at his eye beneath his glasses. He’s not stupid. But he won’t comment. Pansy’s too much of a threat.

“Cannons on Harpies,” Harry supplies instead, scratching at his jaw. “It’s quite a big deal for his whole family, actually, but Ron refuses to sit with them on the Harpies side.” He smiles absently. There’s a flicker of amusement in Pansy’s eyes, but Malfoy looks bored.

“He’s truly troll-brained if after all this time it hasn’t penetrated his thick skull that the She-Weasel and her teammates will always fuck sodding Chudley raw,” Malfoy huffs.

“Charming,” Pansy says.

“Ginny,” Harry corrects and frowns at Malfoy.

“It’s just a nickname, Potter. What, do you want one? Jealous?” Malfoy sneers.

“No,” grits Harry.

“It’s inappropriate to be possessive over your ex-conquests, Potter.”

“I’m not being bloody possessive. She’s my friend. And you should count yourself lucky she doesn’t have qualms about talking to you or being kind to you any longer. Show some respect.”

“Our recent interactions have been nothing if not civil and respectful, and actually, dare I say, enjoyable. I do think I’m lucky. I vividly recall the bat bogeys crawling out of my nose.”

“Gross, Draco. But I do think there’s something to be said for someone who won’t sway in the face of others’ opinions,” Pansy interjects, apparently coming to Ron’s defense.

“Said for him? Or _to_ him? I think he needs a good earful of _open your fucking eyes, Weasley_. I offer to do it myself,” Malfoy says.

Harry bites his tongue and wonders why he bothers. His wondering is short-lived, because Malfoy straightens his wonderfully long legs and peers upward at Pansy, his pale eyelashes catching the light. Those legs had wrapped so wonderfully around Harry’s hips. He’s fucked. The topic of Ron wasn’t enough to distract Pansy from him and Malfoy, apparently, because when he meets her eyes, she gives him an imperious smile. But he’ll be fine so long as he doesn’t drink. When he notes that that will involve supervising Malfoy for the next day and a half, completely sober, he decides he’s truly fucked. Malfoy shoves Pansy away and clambers off the chesterfield with an inscrutable mutter under his breath. He leaves the two of them behind in favor of talking to Blaise. As a second masseuse witch enters the room and guides Theo Nott to a bench, brunette curls tumbling over her shoulders, Harry is reminded of Danica. He knows Pansy’s still watching him, so even if he has the decency to feel guilty, he strives to not let it play across his face. They’d never agreed, him and Danica, that what they’re doing — whatever it is they’re doing — should be exclusive, but he has a pretty damn good feeling that she’s never broken the unspoken pact.

“Cheer up, Potter.” Pansy’s hand claps onto his shoulder and her long nails dig into his skin unpleasantly. “Personally, I don’t know what it feels like to be rejected, so I can only imagine how you’re feeling right now. Just give it time. Here, have this.” She forces her half-drunk glass of something or other into his hands, and departs with a too-rough-to-be-good-natured ruffle to his hair. Harry sighs, stares into the drink, and then rolls his eyes as he closes them. If she only knew.

The cold, pointy tip of a wand digs into the corner of Harry’s jaw, and he doesn’t have to turn to know whose it is. It’s a rather familiar wand, for that matter. “I can’t leave you alone for a minute, can I?” Malfoy says with attempted austerity. Harry gingerly sets the glass onto the table and magics it away with a little wave of his fingers. The pressure on his neck eases up, and Harry tilts his head back just enough to give Malfoy an innocent smile he knows will make the hairs on his neck prickle.

“Happy?”

Malfoy squints. “Tosser.” He flicks his wand at him and then strides off. Harry is mildly concerned that the tingle of magic he feels is a late-onset curse seeping into his veins, or just the clench of his fluttering heart and the swoop of his stomach at the sight of Malfoy’s arse in those goddamn trousers. He doesn’t know which would be worse.

When the faint scent of lavender wafts up to his nose off his jumper, though, he tugs on it to see that the raspberry jam stain is gone.

***

The weekend passes in a blur of agonizing boredom. Sober, agonizing boredom. They forget Greg Goyle in Venice, but he’s in one piece — successfully not having drowned himself in a canal — when he meets them in Moscow, and that’s the only snag in Malfoy’s otherwise flawless agenda.

Strippers and dancers of all nationalities are a welcome distraction from Malfoy, though Harry can’t quite help it when he’s receiving his eighteenth lap dance that weekend and he zones out on the lithe silhouette of Malfoy across the room from him as a witch in sparkling mesh grinds against his lap. He can try to pretend, to fantasize, just for a little while, but it ends up being futile when the irritatingly rational part of his mind tells him that Malfoy would never wear sparkling mesh. He would have something ridiculously poncy to say about the witch’s choice of garb. _Do I look like someone who would wrap their body in what should only be used for curing meat or catching fish? I think not,_ says the tiny Malfoy who’s taken up permanent residence somewhere by his brainstem. If Harry was smarter, he’d evict him.

He’s almost grateful for the restriction on his drinking. The only contact Malfoy makes with him is a forceful grab to the wrist whenever a Portkey is set to depart. It considerably lowers Harry’s likelihood of pulling something stupid, and also lessens Pansy’s suspicion. Whenever she does happen to find herself beside Harry, blissfully drunk, it’s not to taunt him about his flaming crush on Malfoy, but to tousle his hair platonically and tease him about the strippers he interacts with and ask questions about Ron without actually bringing him up by name. Harry’s tempted to call her out on it, but he doesn’t want his throat slit by the very Muggle-assassin-esque razor blade that dangles from one of the many piercings on her ear.

Malfoy is pissed enough to hold onto Harry’s arm with both hands as he Apparates them from home base at Wigton to Grimmauld Place at a modest ten pm on Sunday night. A crease forms between Malfoy’s light brows when he finds them there on the front step. He drops his hands and wipes them mindlessly on his trousers.

“I don’t know how you do that,” Malfoy muses. He eyes Harry’s chest, as if there’s something hidden inside of his ribcage, before he opens the front door and meanders in, his legs over-crossing with every step.

Harry snorts and smiles faintly, his wand arm extended readily in case Malfoy decides to take a dive to the floor at any moment. He steps inside and shuts the door behind him. “Do what?”

“Land so steadily. With me. With — a passenger.” Malfoy stands at the foot of the stairs, his back to Harry, and stretches his arms above his head. It reveals the pale skin of his hips, bony at the front but soft at the back where there are little dimples just above his trouser line. The violent cracks that follow as Iggy and Tilly pop into sight on both sides of Malfoy startle Harry, but Malfoy is perfectly at ease as he lowers himself down into a squat and touches the tops of their heads.

“Master is back!” they squeak.

“Apparition’s never been too hard for me once I got the hang of it,” Harry says absently, but he doesn’t think Malfoy’s listening.

“I’ve missed you,” responds Malfoy, but not to him. He speaks the muffled words against Tilly’s head as the elves embrace Malfoy, their spindly arms meeting around his chest. “Mm. I have. The pain au chocolat at the Perenelle has nothing on yours, Tilly. Help me to bed, would you?” Iggy and Tilly balance Malfoy as he gets back onto his feet, and hold his hands tenderly as they make for the stairs.

Kreacher wanders into the foyer, dragging a feather duster across the floor. “Kreacher welcomes back sir Draco back,” he says in his bullfrog-like tone, though oddly jolly.

“Ah, yes. Thank you, Kreacher,” Malfoy says airily.

“Hello, Kreacher,” Harry greets.

Kreacher has nearly made it into the parlour without looking once at Harry, and the greeting doesn’t stop him, just elicits a grudging, _“Master,”_ from him before he’s out of sight once again.

A survey of the foyer shows that Harry is suddenly very alone, ditched by elves and Malfoy alike. At one point, he would’ve been relieved. That was also a time, though, when he’d thought Kreacher had suffered such great loss as to be rendered incapable of joy. He hears the sound of stumbling footsteps and a closing door on the floor above, and he sighs, leaning back against the door. His magic thrums restlessly through his body, _restlessness_ surges through his blood. Malfoy hasn’t given it a chance to get awkward between them, displaying nothing but sheer talent at virtually ignoring his existence — just like the first time Harry had kissed him. If he spots anyone from the investigative team for the Lucius Malfoy case at the Headquarters tomorrow, he will have to physically restrain himself from shaking them bodily and begging _can you fucking solve the case so I can get Malfoy out of house and get back to my usual day job so I can_ think _straight for the first time in weeks?_ The constant rush of activity was one of the reasons he’d gone for the Aurors. Returning to Hogwarts for eighth year had felt like an inconsequential waste of time to acquire superficial qualifications. But the three years of Auror training that followed once he’d barely scraped by with E’s across the board had been rigorous both physically and mentally. It was precisely what Harry had needed. After his amicable but rather jarring falling out with Ginny — she was all he’d known, and thought he’d wanted, for years — it had been a relief to pour his all into his training, and later, his work. Despite being a permanent fixture in the _Prophet_ ’s gossip column, he hadn’t held any sort of reputation with regards to his sex life until his libido finally caught up to him post-war. Being eighteen, nineteen, twenty, training year-round and in close quarters with a group of determined, badass witches and wizards of the same age, sometimes on week- or months-long missions… it could get heady. And only more so when Harry came to find that his anatomy had no reservations about his attraction to men, too. It’d taken Ron about a week of being an utter twat to get used to that. So, Harry had shagged around a lot. As a trainee. In the corps. Outside of the corps. He didn’t read the papers, only knew from Hermione’s cautious prying — _so, are you and Fay seeing each other?_ or _How’s Justin doing, do you know, Harry?_ — that his slagging off had been deemed important enough to be public knowledge. He’d had to reassure Hermione on a weekly basis that if he ever felt anything real, that it was anything more than _we were both horny and in the same place at the same time_ , anything like he’d felt with Ginny, he would tell her. She never relented, as expected.

He’s on the verge of cracking, is the point. He’s done more desk work in the past month than he has in the past two years combined, and even if the stack of overdue reports on his desk has shrunken considerably, it doesn’t provide him with any sort of relief. He can’t go into the field, can’t put himself on the line, has barely used tactical magic, all because he has to act as Malfoy’s full-time nanny. And he’s too distracted by what he can’t have — fucking _Malfoy_ and his constant, prickly, hot-and-cold presence — to blow off steam, even with Danica. He has nobody but himself to blame for that, though.

But, there is Malfoy. He can always blame Malfoy. 

*** 

The following morning at the Auror Headquarters, Robards calls Harry and Malfoy into a conference room for a briefing from the Lucius Malfoy case team. They open with the news that it’s possible Lucius is in France, as a grainy photograph shows him in Paris walking briskly down the street with a drunkard in tow. Malfoy bitterly identifies the blond in the image as himself, though he neglects to mention that the one he’s gripping so tightly is Harry. If it’s even possible, Robards’ countenance sinks to a new level of disappointment, and he glowers at the investigative team who shift awkwardly on their feet. Lisa from Magical Evidence Analysis proves to be slightly less useless, and reports that she’s been able to discern the real from the falsified writing on the letter from Narcissa that they’d turned in. It’s not much beyond her signature and Malfoy’s name — aspects of her handwriting that would be identifiable to Malfoy — and the rest of the letter, intent on luring Malfoy to the Hog’s Head — was a cursed but rather convincing mimicry of Narcissa’s penmanship. In what Harry guesses is an attempt to appear less of a waste of space, one of Robards’ trainees steps forward and declares that their undercover surveillance of the Hog’s Head that night had been devoid of suspicious characters. Harry remembers his first undercover mission. It’d been awfully exciting. Robards’ Minion Number Two is still probably shitting his pants.

“So, what you mean to say is my father is elusive as ever and you’ve essentially got nothing?” Malfoy asks, arms crossed over his slim chest. “And this gathering was a complete waste of my time?” he adds in a mutter.

Robards, despite his weariness, speaks up before anyone from the team can. “That would be correct. We’re relatively confident that the second sweep of your family home has proved to be clean. That being said, we would strongly advise you to stay under daily Auror watch here at the Ministry and at Auror Potter’s for the time being, but if you insist, we would be happy to accommodate your return to the Manor. Still guarded, of course.”

Malfoy’s lip twitches. He doesn’t take the time to contemplate, however. “I’m fine at Potter’s. Thank you.”

Robards remains in his seat behind the conference table, fingers drumming against his surface. Harry thinks he sees his eyes sparkle with amusement. “I realize that our arrangement with you has been rather informal until now, with you filling Ms. Bones’ position. If you’d like compensation —“

“Thank you for the offer, Head Auror, but please don’t insult me. I’ll continue out of the kindness of my own heart because your department is an absolute mess and I wouldn’t trust anyone but Susan and myself to hold down the fort.” Malfoy smiles tightly and then turns on his heel to exit the room. Robards keenly watches him go. Merlin’s balls. Is there a man in the Department that doesn’t ogle Malfoy’s arse or his gittish-ly enticing demeanor? Harry’s lucky he hasn’t heard a peep from Creasey that morning. Then again, it’s only nine.

Harry makes to leave, but Robards clears his throat imperiously. He stops in his tracks as the rest of the team files out, only holding out on his _please be nice to me because I’m your favorite and likely future successor_ smile until they’re alone.

“You’ve catalogued all of Blaise Zabini’s memories, yes?”

“Er. Most, sir.”

Robards steeples his hands and sighs into them. “Get on with the rest, then, bloody hell. Of those you’ve seen, you’re certain there’s nothing there that you could be missing, Potter? Anything at all that could give us direction?”

Harry swallows hard. If he’s being quite honest, he’s felt too guilty in recent weeks to watch any more than he’s already seen. It’s clear to him that Malfoy puts up a front, and it feels like cheating to peek behind the veil without his knowing, to look him in the eye without being reminded that Paris isn’t the first time he’s seen him naked or vulnerable. He can’t explain that to Robards, though. It would break his contract. And even if he could, he couldn’t put into words the tragic, unrequited, and very Slytherin _love story_ that Blaise Zabini had bottled and stoppered for him. “No,” he says.

Robards eyes him blankly. “I must say that I’m surprised I’ve gotten no concerns from Draco Malfoy about his safety, so I commend you for that.” He pauses. “There’s a training clinic tomorrow afternoon for your cohort. Please spread the word. Morgana knows we don’t need another repeat of Parkinson arriving unprepared in duel-inappropriate footwear that Weasley transfigured from heels into wheels in an effort to help. And do your work, Potter.” A rare smile tugs at his lips and he opens the door with a flourish of his long wand. ”Get out of my sight.”

Harry chuckles weakly. Right. “You’ve got it, sir.”

*** 

Draco has to tag along to Tactical Intensity Training.

“You’re fucking joking.”

Pansy smirks up at Draco as she kicks her pointy-toed heels underneath her desk and slips her little feet into a pair of black trainers. They’re an odd thing to notice, Pansy’s feet. But there had been a time when Draco had tried to get to know Pansy’s body from the inside out, try to understand where the hell her flaws were because _why isn’t he attracted to her for Merlin’s sake_. He’d been young and a bit daft, to say the least. But Pansy had lovely, smooth hands that gave the best head rubs and pale, small feet that hadn’t irked Draco the way Greg’s always had when they’d once upon a time shed their robes and shoes and tiptoed through the grass and laid in the sun outside Hogwarts every spring. Every spring but the last two.

“TIT time, darling.” Pansy stands up from her chair and grabs Draco by the front of his jumper, knowing he’ll follow swiftly because he doesn’t want the bloody cashmere to stretch. She possesses a modicum of mercy, though, so she releases him after a few seconds once she’s certain he’s on her tail. Several of the other Aurors stream out of the offices and into the hallway along with them, including Weasley and Potter. “There’s a gallery in the training gymnasium. It’s where the Evaluators usually sit. It’ll be fun! And perfectly safe, mind you. I could AK that glass with the power of a thousand Potters and you’d still have every hair on your head.”

Draco’s eyes dart to Potter, who doesn’t so much as flinch at the sound of his name in passing conversation. Fucking Potter and his fucking household name. “That’s not saying much. Hair sticks around for ages postmortem.”

Pansy rolls her eyes and hooks her arm through Draco’s elbow. Harried workers from all over the DMLE brush past them, clutching steaming cups of coffee that go unspilled. The clamor from the Canteen grows louder as they near it. Draco wrinkles his nose. The Canteen is a terrible and dangerous place where Aurors gather in hordes at mealtimes to pile dry, bland food onto trays, scarf it down without properly chewing, and belch and chug their way through sugary sodas and calorie-dense dairy drinks. He hasn’t returned after his first visit, when Pansy had attempted to convince him that chips covered in bright orange cheese and salad dressing were a good idea, and an Auror he knew neither by name or face had called him ‘Death Eater scum’ with a contrastingly fond slap to his shoulder. He shudders just at the thought of it, and refuses to peer inside as they pass by.

The gymnasium, on the other hand, is impressive, almost as impressive as its expansion charms. It smells a bit, sure, but Draco isn’t so surprised. He’s read somewhere that sweat of different natures — from heat, stress, or exercise — smells different, some worse than others, and he’s sure there’s some sort of biological foundation in the hypothesis that magical exertion-induced sweat must reek the worst. It’s the only way he can explain the smell of the Auror Headquarters; coffee, coffee, coffee, milk chocolate from stress-induced binges, parchment, and the subtle undertone of body odor.

Pansy’s always told him he’s been too aware of his senses.

“You can follow those blokes,” Pansy tells him, nudging him out of the procession of Aurors and toward the clipboard-clutching figures with billowing, indigo cloaks making their way toward what he can only assume is the gallery.

Draco is reluctant to leave Pansy’s side. As much as he’s come to realize that he doesn’t absolutely despise everyone in the Auror Department — far too many of them are so utterly good-natured he’d feel guilty attempting to hate them without a given reason — Pansy’s presence is like a security blanket to him. He smirks anyway, taking a few steps backward. “Are they the Evaluators? The ones giving you marks? Is the Head Auror going to read what they write about you? Should I befriend them, discuss with them your secret transgressions on official Auror duty? Tell them about that time in fourth year when you —“

Draco cuts himself off and rapidly casts a Shield Charm when Pansy flings Merlin-knows-what hex at him. He nearly trips backwards onto his arse. Pansy sticks her tongue out at him.

“Hold your hippogriffs, Parkinson, the clinic has yet to begin,” Robards says as he strides between them, arms linked at the small of his back. Draco smiles smugly, but then Robards catches his eye, too. “Impressive reflexes, Mr. Malfoy, but if you’d kindly follow the Evaluators to the gallery…”

Draco doesn’t need to be asked twice. “Certainly, sir.” Robards’ lips quirk up at the corners in response, and Draco smiles easily as he swivels around, but not before catching Potter’s eye. He’s standing in that Potter way of his, feet overconfidently far apart, hands on his hips, with Weasley’s blabbering in one ear probably going out the other. He looks far too amused by Draco, and he really, really wishes Potter would forget about his existence or at least try to hate him again. They’d gone five years with minimal encounters, those of which had been casual when it’d been unavoidable, but now Potter’s seen much more of Draco than he’d ever expected, more than he’d ever deemed necessary. It’s charity, Draco thinks. He’s done Potter a favor, spiced up what is actually a decidedly boring life behind the romanticized lothario persona the _Prophet_ manufactures for him. Yes. Potter is lucky to have buried his face in Draco’s arse, to be able to tweeze that memory out of his brain, throw it in a Pensieve, and wank himself silly rewatching it. He’s lucky. Draco’s eyes narrow on Potter and he strides away, hugging himself. The glass separating the rows of tiered benches from the rest of the gymnasium is nearly invisible, and Draco has to touch it with his fingers and accidentally leave a few fingerprints behind to believe it’s truly there. The Evaluators sit in the very front row, chatting amongst themselves, quills behind their ears, not sparing his childish curiosity a second glance.

“It looks delicate, but it’s not. Didn’t even quiver this one time that Harry lost his cool and threw a _Bombarda_ at it. Crazy bastard.”

Draco looks over his shoulder, locks eyes with Danica Dawlish. She’s sitting in the very back row, her legs crossed, leaning into the wall behind her. She’s in smart, tailored, light pink robes that are bit more than leggy and that flatter her bronze complexion fantastically. Draco wonders how none of Potter’s trendy girlfriends — or sex-friends, rather — could withstand his consistently disheveled state and not stuff him into more respectable clothes. It’s not as if he hasn’t the money for them. She flashes Draco a grin and pats the spot on the bench beside her. Given that it would be terribly awkward to refuse, Draco steps past the Evaluators and makes his way up to sit beside Danica. Potter’s sex-friend and Potter’s sex-enemy, alone, together, fraternizing during an Auror training clinic. Stranger things have happened.

“Hello,” Draco murmurs. He finds he has to try rather hard to relax. It’d been a lot easier being around her when they could share laughs over taking the mickey out of Potter. He supposes they still can. “Are you here on official Magical Education business, then?”

Danica laughs softly. It’s a deep, rather gorgeous sound. Draco resents her for it. “No. It’s my lunch hour. Just missed my boy. Haven’t seen him so often recently.” Draco fights the urge to gag at her moniker for Potter. “Blaise’s stag party was last weekend, but I assume you were there, so you probably already knew that. Stole him away from me, didn’t you?” He almost expects to find genuine jealousy in Danica’s face, but she just smiles at him through a veil of letdown.

Draco carefully feels the top of his head to make sure he hasn’t a hair out of place. “I apologize for that. We could’ve done without him there,” he mutters, and Danica chuckles. He watches Robards direct the Aurors to pair up with their partners. It’s hard to hear through the magical barrier, though, so they could’ve very well been choosing their partners with the swiftness with which Pansy seeks out the Weasel. She’s already looking cross, but he’s smiling. Draco can only begin to wonder what very Weasley greeting or comment he’s made. Potter looks tense beside a complacent Clemence Creasey.

“Apology accepted. I’m almost sorry I wasn’t there. Harry can be a handful when he’s drunk.”

“Would’ve been nice of you to warn me in advance.” Draco can’t suppress the tiniest smile as he peers at Danica from the corners of his eyes. Potter had been more than just a handful. Then again, Potter had also gotten more than a handful of Draco’s arse. He coughs abruptly and Danica slaps him heartily on the back. A silence that Draco thinks is friendly follows.

The partners ritualistically enter their dueling stances in two, neat rows. It’s an absurd custom. Draco’s seen too many a Death Eater use dishonorable means to gain an upper hand in a ‘duel,’ and he doesn’t suppose the wimps that the Aurors have to deal with in present day, those stealing from Gringotts and messing with Muggles, would have the decency to bow before their opponents. Pansy overdoes it slightly. She told Draco she’d been scolded for her footwear at the last clinic, but that hasn’t stopped her from sporting metallic, red hotpants that day. Robards gets an eyeful when he trails past her mid-bow. Draco grins wryly.

Robards calls out orders, and in tandem with the movements of his mouth, the Aurors on one side of the formation cast offensively while the others defend. Draco watches Potter and bites the end of his thumb.

“After Ron and Harry got separated, I always wondered why they paired him with Clem,” Danica says. Draco waits for her to finish her thought. The quills of the Evaluators make soft scratching noises against parchment. She peeks at Draco through her lush, brown curls. “Then I came to my first clinic and, like, felt like such a wazzock.” She bites her lower lip and smiles. “He’s bloody good at defensive magic, that’s why.”

Draco’s teeth sink further into his thumb, and he lifts an eyebrow, just to make sure she knows he’s acknowledged her. He’s not sure what she means to imply. His gaze magnetically finds Potter as he peers at the duelists again. He looks bored, to say the least. More than once he shields himself from Creasey’s spells without so much as a flick of his wrist. “I’m not sure I understand. Potter looks more intent on falling asleep than he does on destroying Clemence.”

Just then, Danica’s fingers curl around Draco’s wrist and squeeze excitedly. “Just wait.”

He’s tempted to peel her hand off. But instead, he obeys and watches.

Robards moves about the gymnasium dictatorially, and once he’s satisfied with what he’s seen, he states a command, muffled by the barrier. All of the Aurors but for Potter and Clemence Creasey move to stand along the back wall.

“He’s basically the teacher’s pet,” Danica gushes and crushes Draco’s ulnar styloid. He snorts, though he believes it. Professors had always found a way to adore Potter, even when he’d been a nasty, little rebel.

Robards seems to lecture awhile. Draco can tell because Pansy’s doing what she always had during History of Magic, letting her chin dip forward so her fringe falls into her eyes as she sits upright, allowing her to doze discreetly. Robards demonstrates rather eccentric wand movements. Perhaps they’re not eccentric at all, though, and are commonly used in offensive and defensive magic. Draco’s line of work doesn’t exactly keep him up to date with more modern spells. Finally, though, Robards turns to the partners standing at ease, and points to Potter directly. At the cue, Potter exhales so that his chest deflates slightly as he turns to Clemence, who, impressively, looks perfectly calm. Draco can’t help snorting quietly when they bow, and he sees Danica and an Evaluator in the front row both look at him from his periphery. All of it blurs, though, when Potter points his wand at Creasey, twists his wrist clockwise, and jerks the tip of it upward. Draco feels a strange sort of numbness overcome him, like his head and hands are disembodied, as a tsunami-like wave of purple light rushes toward Creasey. The rebound of the spell on Creasey’s _Protego_ makes the whole gymnasium quake, and the violet light dissolves into the air like smoke. It’s only when Draco dares to breathe again does he notice he’d _stopped_ , and that he’s now holding onto Danica’s hand tightly. Potter appears unfazed, relieved, even, and Clemence seems to have broken out in a light sweat. Robards smiles and turns back to the remaining Aurors, most of who have found purchase against the wall. Draco thinks he wasn’t the only one shaken.

“Fuck,” he breathes, covering their clenched hands with his other hand. “Fuck. What the _fuck_ was that?”

Danica grins. “More like what it wasn’t. _Spatius Consisto_. Nobody can do it quite like Harry. Or at all, really. Freezes time for all victims in a certain radius.” When Draco’s brows furrow, she holds up her free hand. “Don’t ask me about technicalities. I don’t know, Draco. All I know is that it requires a hell of a lot of power to cast and to suppress.”

Draco blinks, his eyes slowly trailing back to Potter. Robards has him reiterate the demonstration. That time, Draco’s ready for the slight quake, the fizzing quality to the air, the cracking, explosive sound of the spell colliding with Clemence’s shield. The impact creates a rush of air that visibly ruffles Potter’s messy fringe. Potter looks ecstatic. The look on his face takes Draco back to every Quidditch game against Gryffindor he’s ever played; each had ended with that look on Potter’s stupid face — exhilarated, relieved, seraphic, even. What a fucking hotshot. Weasley claps, looks on with the awe of a Quidditch player’s trophy wife in the stands. Draco swallows thickly.

Robards conducts Potter through other spells that Danica narrates into his left ear that Draco only understands vaguely through his Latin deduction. None are quite as breathtaking as the first. Breathtaking. Draco feels like a dolt using such a word to describe Potter’s magic, but it isn’t because it’s Potter. It’s because of the magic. The magic had been breathtaking.

Surely just that.

Once Potter’s finished showing off, Robards disperses the Aurors into the partner groups again, scattered about the gymnasium. The first round had been for the evaluation of technique, and the following round is for the evaluation of improvisation. Potter and Clemence move to stand close to the gallery. Clemence looks in Draco’s direction and smiles in an attempt at sultry, wriggling his fingers in a wave. In that very moment, Potter Disarms him, and Draco just can’t help it when he laughs out loud as the shock registers on Clemence’s face. Potter’s lips quirk up at the corners, and he mimics Clemence’s ridiculous wave as she shoots a wink at Danica. Or at Draco. She decides herself its recipient, however, when she hugs Draco’s arm, leaning into him and blowing Potter an equally ridiculous kiss.

As the Aurors hex each other, poorly-aimed spells hitting the gallery glass with magnificent, colorful sparks, Draco and Danica make idle chatter about work, and when the conversation drifts toward their love lives, Draco is forced to keep it solely Danica-centric. She’s a close friend of Paloma Bexley’s, and even if she wasn’t, Draco doesn’t plan on telling a soul about the time he’d wasted head over heels for Blaise Zabini. This backfires, however, when Danica reveals that she and Potter have been seeing each other casually for several years. And that’s enough to keep her talking about Potter for several years’ worth. It’s torturous.

When the TIT clinic comes to a close, Danica declares that she’s overstayed her lunch hour and runs out of the gallery. Draco rises, too, and watches through the window as she approaches a rather disarrayed Potter and gives him a kiss to the cheek. Potter smiles, and it’s very convincing, right up until the moment that he looks directly at Draco as he gives her cinched waist a squeeze. And he doesn’t look away. When Draco flips him the bird, Potter’s smile only brightens. It’s infuriating.

‘I hope you fall onto a knife,’ Draco mouthes.

Potter’s dark brows screw up. ‘What?’ he mouthes back.

Draco ignores him. At a loss for a place to escape to where Potter isn’t, he follows Pansy into the women’s locker room. Nobody seems to mind.

*** 

As always, Potter Apparates them home that evening. Draco doesn’t head straight up the stairs this time. He fixes his own cup of tea first. Then he heads straight up the stairs.

With the way Danica had desperately groped Potter post-TIT, Draco has a sneaking feeling she’ll be coming over that night. More than just that, she’ll be next door, a wall away, bouncing on his dick. The thought has him nearly spilling his tea onto the handwritten place cards for the wedding. That would’ve certainly been a tragedy, given that Draco had been awake until the wee hours on several occasions the week prior, desperate to learn the elegant but apparently antiquated Muggle art of calligraphy. Supposedly, the Muggles’ picture boxes can now produce them en masse and that’s why no one handwrites them anymore. He’d managed to charm his quill to do it for him, which is almost as efficient.

It’s not Danica Dawlish that comes over that night, though. The only reason Draco exits his room past ten at night — he doesn’t believe he’s done that in all his time dwelling at Potter’s — is because of a foul smell drifting from the downstairs. He’s clad in his black silk pajamas and a mauve dressing gown, and his toes are cold against the old, wooden floors as he tiptoes down the dark stairwell, nose pinched in distaste. Light pools beneath the door to the parlour, and Draco is close to impulsively shoving it open, but the sound of Weasley’s voice stops him.

“It’s… like. I don’t fucking know, Harry. I don’t understand her,” Weasley mutters.

“How long’s it been?” comes Potter’s reply.

“Three months.”

“What? I thought that night — the dinner party, when I made the meatballs, when she danced with Malfoy — I could’ve sworn you two —“

Weasley snorts. Laughs unnecessarily loud. “Nah, mate. Had me fooled, too. She… she went straight to bed. Said somethin’ about the goblins at the office, the fucking goblins, and then just… yeah. Lights out.”

“Fuck me.”

“My dick was sad.”

Draco cringes. He decides he’s not a fan of Weasley referring to his undoubtedly ginger Nether Regions. He slumps against the wall beside the door.

Potter sighs. “Is she pregnant?”

 _What?_ thinks Draco, and apparently he and Weasley are on the same page, because he says the same, albeit in a distinctly _Weasley_ sputtering manner. “What?!”

“I don’t know. Aren’t pregnant women repulsed by sex? Don’t they just puke all the time and… shit like that?”

“I think I’d know if my girlfriend was pregnant.” There’s a pause. “And I thought pregnant women got hornier! They get bigger tits!”

The stench gets worse, and Draco’s had it with this infernal conversation, so he nudges the door open and steps inside.

The room is hazy with smoke. Potter and Weasley are sprawled across the couch. There’s a firewhisky glass balanced on Weasley’s knee, and Potter’s taking a pull from what Draco can only deign to assume is a spliff.

“Malfoy,” Weasley says, not disagreeably. It’s a strange sight to see Weasley with eyes redder than his hair.

Draco tries to wave some of the smoke away from his face before folding his arms over his chest. “What the hell are — I can smell this from upstairs, I hope you realize.”

Potter blinks, and he most likely did _not_ realize, because it seems to dawn on his features right then. “Oh. Shit. Sorry. I usually — shield the doors. I guess I forgot.” He clears his throat, the spliff burning away in his fingers. The smoke Vanishes instantly. Draco thinks Potter’s wandless, wordless business has something to do with it. The smell remains, though, acrid but still almost sickly sweet.

He says nothing to Potter’s words at first, then lowers himself down into an armchair across from them. Weasley’s barely-visible brows disappear as they move toward his hairline. He’d been expecting Draco to leave, clearly. Draco smiles ruefully. “What are you, fifteen? Two lads, sharing Muggle reefer late at night, lamenting all the pussy they’re not getting?”

Weasley pales, but he doesn’t rebuke Draco for eavesdropping. “It’s — it’s prescription!”

Draco smiles snidely. “Weasley, what in Merlin’s sake are you —?”

“It’s mine.” Right. Potter’s there. Draco glances at him. He’s tucked against the corner of the couch, his strong bicep propped up on the armrest, legs relaxed apart in fitted Muggle denim. Draco arches an eyebrow, expecting elaboration, but Potter only brings the spliff to his lips, speaking only once there’s a puff of white smoke trailing from his lips. Draco shifts in his seat, jaw clenching. “It’s my prescription.” Potter shares a sheepish smile with Weasley. “Ron’s… supervising.”

Draco leans back in his chair and crosses his legs, toying with the hem of his dressing gown. “What medical affliction could you possibly have that can’t be healed by magical substances?”

Potter’s lips quirk up at the corners, his smile goes wry. Draco loathes it. He wants to see him take another drag.

“Too much magic,” Weasley answers for him, grinning shamelessly as Potter hands him the spliff. Fuck Weasley. Draco looks to Potter for clarification. Neither man really has a way with words, but he at least considers Potter to be marginally less of a bumbling idiot.

“It’s… weird, actually,” Potter offers. “They tried a lot of shit. The Healers. It was almost like… After the war, I felt. Like. I could never sit still. I was at the bottom of the barrel in all my classes, partly ‘cos I never went. I’d rather be flying or fucking or… just. Anything. I couldn’t pay attention, sit in one place long enough to read. Not that I’ve ever been stellar at doing that, but. It’d just gotten worse.” Potter accepts the spliff back from Weasley, chuckles when Weasley fails miserably to blow a smoke ring at him. _Use magic, you fucking idiot,_ Draco thinks tiredly. “None of the professors seemed to care. I think they thought I was… y’know. Damaged. Loony. Mrs. Weasley had me taken to St. Mungo’s over Christmas, though. And sure enough, I had… I don’t even know. Increased blood magic levels. Ended up being that it’s hard to damper magic with magic.” He shrugs. “Pot helps. The Muggles get some things right.”

Draco doesn’t say anything for a moment, his eyebrows in a resting furrow as he watches Potter go in for a second pull. “How have I only noticed this now?” he mutters, mostly to himself.

Potter smiles not-at-all-guiltily through the curl of smoke he exhales. “Unforgotten Shield Charms. And Kreacher’s good with handling the smell. Dunno what he does.”

After that, Draco doesn’t know what to say. He ought to leave. He can’t argue that Potter’s being unreasonable. It’s Healer-recommended. And Draco’s the intruder in his home. He can’t exactly tell him to stop.

Weasley swears obnoxiously loud when he notices the time. “Shit, shit, bollocks. Promised ‘Mione I’d be back ‘fore eleven to look at the dress robes she bought me for Zabini’s wedding.” He rises quickly.

Draco snorts. “Don’t bother. Have her return them. Blaise and Paloma are swanky as fuck. You’ll be the only one at the wedding in stuffy old dress robes except for Paloma’s great-grandmother if you let Granger clothe you.”

The color returns to Weasley’s face, as well as something akin to relief. “No dress robes?” he breathes hopefully.

“Well, don’t show up in bloody dungarees,” Draco huffs. “A Muggle suit will do.”

Weasley registers this reality slowly. Goes wan again. “I haven’t got a Muggle suit.” He breathes, chest rising and falling once, before he looks at Potter. “Thanks, Malfoy. Bye, Harry.” He trudges to the Floo and is gone in a flicker of flames.

Draco’s eyes are on the fireplace. He can feel Potter’s eyes burning into his profile. “Trouble in the Granger-Weasley household?” he asks lightly, drumming his fingers against the worn leather of the chair. When Potter doesn’t respond, he clears his throat. When he turns, Potter isn’t, in fact, watching him. He’s biting his lip as he uses magic to roll another spliff.

Potter’s lips quirk up at the corners when Draco’s eyes settle on him. “If I did it with my fingers, I’d fudge it up,” he explains, though Draco didn’t ask. “Didn’t mean to be rude. Want me to smoke you out?”

Draco feels like he’s got fire ants crawling under his skin. When he’s looking everywhere but Potter, it feels like Potter’s looking at him like he wants to _devour_. But when Draco meets his eyes, his countenance is nothing if not innocent. It’s like the Muggle game, where the player holds a plastic hammer and the objective is to smash the capricious moles as they peek from the ground. Draco’s hammer is heavy, it’s really fucking heavy, and he’s ready to smash Potter across the head, smash him on the couch — no, no, not that — but whenever he looks, takes aim, the mole is gone.

Perhaps he’s imagining things.

Perhaps Potter’s already forgotten about their little hour-long fling, and Draco’s the only one in a tizzy about it. Perhaps he’d indeed winked at Danica at the clinic that afternoon, not at him. In hindsight, Draco’s suspicions are just embarrassing. Perhaps Potter’s just being a fucking Gryffindor, putting on a brave, kind face while the ex-Death Eater sleeps safe and sound in his household, hiding out from a nonexistent threat.

Draco tries not to be annoyed, because this should be good news. “Please,” he mutters, voice devoid of emotion. He uncrosses his legs and scoots to the edge of his seat, accepting the tightly-rolled spliff from Potter and bringing it to his lips. Before he’s had a chance to think about it, Potter’s snapped his fingers and lit up the end. Draco tries to fix him with an unimpressed look, but before he can, he’s coughing, and he’s coughing really fucking hard. He holds the spliff out to Potter, wrinkling his nose, feeling his cheeks warm with embarrassment. Potter lets out a good-natured chuckle.

“Been a while?”

“You’ve no idea,” Draco mutters, swallows against the sour taste in his mouth. He’d smoked once with Blaise in fifth year. Once. They’d shotgunned it, for the most part, nearly snogging. Draco wonders if that’s when his initial attraction to Blaise had begun to bloom.

He looks down at his hands, his bony fingers twisted inelegantly into one another. Feels nothing but a bitter curl of disappointment in his chest. He doesn’t know how much time passes, but then there’s a soft thump as Potter taps the couch beside him, where Weasley had sat. “C’mere,” he says.

Draco complies for reasons unknown. He’s sweating a bit. The room’s warm. He leaves his dressing gown on the armchair and perches on the couch beside him. When Potter holds out the spliff again, he averts his eyes but takes it nonetheless.

“Saw you sat with Double-D during the TIT clinic,” Potter remarks.

Draco only coughs a bit that time, spewing smoke from his mouth as he does. When he whips his head to stare at Potter, he’s utterly at ease — one arm on the back of the couch, one on the armrest, his body angled toward Draco. “Is that what you call her behind her back? Twenty points to Gryffindor for objectification, Potter,” he bites.

Potter gives him an innocuous smile. “Double-D. Danica Dawlish. It’s just her initials.”

Draco’s tongue presses to the inside of his cheek and he fights against a chuckle. He rolls his eyes, and before Potter can steal the spliff away again, he takes a hit. He coughs again. He doesn’t have the decency to feel ashamed that time as he holds it out to Potter. “You think you’re clever, don’t you?”

“Sometimes.” Potter’s calloused fingers brush against his. He’s only taking the spliff back, though.

Draco allows himself to sit fully on the sofa and close his eyes. It’s warm because of Weasley, or because the room is warm. Strange comforts he finds in Weasley nowadays. His jumper, his warmth. It’s concerning.

“Do I have to wear a Muggle suit to Zabini’s wedding, too?” Potter asks.

“Only if you want to live.”

“That’s not harsh at all.”

“I don’t need you to embarrass me. I’ve enough on my plate. You wouldn’t want to embarrass Double-D, either, would you?” Draco licks his lips.

“I suppose not.”

Draco cracks an eye open. Potter’s watching him with an amused smile. “Sod off.”

Potter chuckles. “No.”

Draco’s lips twist into a faint, inexplicable smile and he shuts his eye. He laces his fingers together over his stomach.

“Nice jammies,” says Potter.

In an effort not to laugh, Draco makes a sound that’s awfully Thestral-like. “Would you fucking stop?” he hisses, and moves mechanically with his first instinct, which is apparently to get onto his knees, knee-walk across the space between them, and pin Potter to the couch by his neck. Only once he’s up there does he realize it, and he suddenly feels too much like Weasley, whose brain can only process small amounts of information at a given time. Potter’s gaze is unreadable, and Draco’s blood feels like it’s rushing through his ears, whispering a chorus of _what the fuck are you doing why don’t you want me please want me again what the hell am I doing_. He’s tearing his hands away when Potter moves to hold the spliff between his teeth and curls his hands into the backs of Draco’s thighs. Draco jerks away, but Potter reins him in, and the clashing movements have Draco nearly toppling backward off the sofa. Potter doesn’t move his hands, but a warm, unseeable contact brings Draco upright again. He doesn’t move, hardly breathes, his eyes fixated on the clenched corner of Potter’s jaw. It’s been a good while since he’s shaved. His stubble is growing in rough and dark. It’s a wonder Draco’s thighs are strong enough still to hold him up. He plucks the spliff from Potter’s mouth, pinching it between his fingers, exhaling carefully through his nostrils like he doesn’t want Potter to feel the breath on his face. His own eyes are wide, flighty, evasive. Potter’s hands glide up along the silk of Draco’s pyjamas, his knobby fingers slipping into the crack of his arse, though they don’t stop there, traveling upward until they’ve reached Draco’s shoulder blades under his top, spread over the warm skin there. Potter’s breathing loudly, the way that Draco had always hated when it’d been someone in the Slytherin dormitory, but now it just twists him up inside, pricks on every hair on his arms until they all stand on end. He draws Draco downward, into him, until their foreheads are together, until the pointy tip of Draco’s nose presses into Potter’s and they’re forced to breathe the same hot air. In, out. He can smell Potter. Hash, man, firewood, lavender, musk. Draco doesn’t know if his lips have been parted this whole time, but he only notices when he sucks in a sharp breath that’s cold against sensitive teeth. He presses his weight into Potter, who accepts it like a gift, his arms warm and strong where they now circle Draco’s waist, his silken top fluttering above them.

“Good grief, Malfoy, please,” Potter whispers heavily.

Draco shuts his eyes, relaxes enough that his head drags against Potter’s, until their cheeks are together and Potter’s glasses dig painfully into Draco’s temple. He settles his free hand right over Potter’s thrumming heart, nails digging into his skin through his top. He feels like a spring, coiled up so, so tight, too close to bursting. His mouth brushes against Potter’s cheek, and he wonders how loud his breathing sounds in Potter’s ear. Potter reads it as an invitation, because then he’s turning his head, thumbs digging adamantly into Draco’s hipbones.

And Draco draws back. He looks around frantically for an ashtray because he’s still holding the bloody spliff, _where the fuck is it, where is it_. He looks manically at Potter and stumbles backward out of his grip, landing blessedly on his unsteady feet as his loose pyjama sleeve falls away from his arm and pools at his elbow. He ashes it against the scarred tattoo on his arm, hissing through his teeth at pain he doesn't feel. He could’ve just Vanished it. He could’ve just Vanished the fucking spliff. “Fuck,” he breathes. He doesn’t look at Potter as he turns aimlessly and heads toward the door, his bare feet sticking to the hardwood.

“Malfoy,” Potter pleads again.

His wand is upstairs, and his arm is numb, but he wants the parlour doors to slam behind him as he leaves, needs them to. “ _Colloportus_ ,” he breathes. And then they do. He laughs almost hysterically. Intent. That’s the key.


	12. Chapter 12

A restaurant, Harry thinks. A restaurant with a posh back garden that’s lovely, roomy, and alfresco despite being walled in by charming, ruddy, crumbling brick on the three sides that don’t open back into the restaurant itself. Vines crawl greedily up the walls, and the greenery planted along the base of the wall curves in a longing way toward the imposing table that takes up most of the little garden. The grass underfoot is perfectly trimmed, and, by the looks of the pristine white high heels on Narcissa Malfoy’s feet, it has been charmed to be as _will-not-suck-your-clean-shoes-into-my-muddy-clutches_ as possible. The table is surrounded by wrought-iron chairs of all colors and shapes that still manage to coordinate, and an obscene number of centerpieces — flowers with softly glowing pollen and leaves swaying calmly, sentiently — clutter the very middle of the table, forming a wall of foliage that Harry imagines it would be difficult to have a conversation through, between a person on one side and a person across. They’ll have to settle with playing footsie. The floral arrangements, intermingled with floating candles and glimmering jewels, look incongruous on their own, but in the bigger picture, as a small part of the whole of the lavish setup in the restaurant’s back garden, they look strangely lovely.

At the closer end of the table, two distinct pairs sit across from one another; Blaise Zabini, arm hooked around Paloma Bexley, drawing her further into his side despite the fact that their chairs are already touching and the wrought-iron won’t give any more to allow them closer contact, and an overly blond, slightly older duo. They’re not blond in the disconcerting, blinding Malfoy way, though — their hair is golden and warm, like Paloma’s, and the man is dressed in a chevron jumper that’s a bit 70s, large, aviator glasses on his nose, and the woman is the spitting image of Paloma in several decades, busty and nipped in by a floral halter dress. Mr. and Mrs. Bexley. Adjacent to the Bexleys is young Ethan Bexley, probably fresh out of Hogwarts, several years younger than his sister and Harry and Blaise. There’s no sign of Mrs. Zabini, though Harry still believes her to be a myth, so he’s not so surprised, and the rest of the table is smattered with a crowd Harry would’ve been terrified to sit amongst not ten years ago; Pansy Parkinson, flirting with the waiter holding the bottle of champagne, Theodore Nott, an otherwise regal-looking Narcissa Malfoy, had it not been for the frizzled, white bits of her hair that had managed to stray from her tight bun, more faceless ex-Slytherins and their parents, and Malfoy. Draco Malfoy. He’s beside Pansy, impatiently holding his empty glass beneath the server’s nose. The server is too busy staring right down Pansy’s blouse to notice. He’s pale, in the same way he’d been in most of Zabini’s memories; pale from confinement to the Manor. If Harry is following the timeline correctly, this is after the last memory he’d catalogued, after Blaise and Malfoy’s sickening goodbye up against Malfoy’s bed, after Blaise’s confession and his stupid, immature, boyish ways of getting what he wants. He can’t tell how long after. Malfoy has permanent dark circles, Harry’s noticed. The little bit of puff beneath his eyes and around them is always tinged a veiny lavender. Harry, unable to help it, has many of Malfoy’s faces logged into his mind. And the last time he’d seen him in a memory, he didn’t look nearly as sickly as he does now. His face is gaunt, and the lavender is more of a deep purple, and his eyes look like he’s just slept and awoken or like he’s never slept in his lifetime.

Based on the way Paloma admires her left right finger like it’s a new toy she hasn’t tired of yet, it’s an engagement party. Engagement dinner. Harry thinks it’s a custom that normal people practice — not that he would ever imply that the Zabinis and Bexleys are _normal_. It’s just that he’s never been to one himself.

“Contain yourself, Pansy, before the poor fool drops and shatters what is currently my only source of relief,” Malfoy says, and though the waiter remains transfixed on Pansy’s tits, she turns toward Malfoy with a roll of her full-lashed eyes.

“Liven up, love.” She adjusts the lapel of the velvet-trimmed blazer he’s got on. “I’ll never stop doing what makes me feel alive.” She meets his eyes, smirks. “You should try it sometime.”

Malfoy’s eyes flicker to the entranced waiter, who is three seconds away from drooling onto Pansy’s porcelain skin. “Easier said than done when you can’t morph your chest into a pair of great, big jubblies on a whim.”

Pansy’s jaw drops, and she blinks, affronted, at Malfoy. “My tits are perfectly natural! Despite my awe-inspiring, Metamorphic talents — which, you should know, have been commended twice by none other than Head Auror Gawain Robards, and countless times by my Auror training advisor — I don’t _need_ them to be irresistible. I’m perfectly okay with my imperfections. My tits just don’t happen to be one of them.”

“Oh, brother. Yes, yes, we’ve all heard the story of how you morphed into a porker during a raid simulation —“

“I did not morph into a hog. It was a horse. A _stallion_ , Draco. Which was perfectly fitting, given that we were busting an illegal potions manufacturer on a _farm_ —“

“Mm, and then Robards showed up, patted you on your healthy, equine rump, fed you a sugar cube, and said, _you’re in. You’re officially an Auror, Pansy Iphigenia Parkinson. Now, please make love to me against his magical bale of hay that isn’t actually a bale of hay but is just magicked to appear like one_.”

Harry remembers that, too. Obviously not what Malfoy described, but the farm raid simulation during their training. Pansy had morphed into a horse and at the end of that day’s training, all Harry had gotten was mud — and possibly whatever magic feces was intermixed with that mud — in every uncomfortable place imaginable. Pansy’s in the midst of an indignant champagne sip when she bursts into laughter at Malfoy’s words, champagne dribbling out of her nose and onto her breasts and her half-empty dinner plate. She’s screeching, calling upon the unnecessary attention of her tablemates. “Fuck! Fuck, it burns! Draco, it _burns_!” Pansy whines through her giggling. Malfoy smiles, but his eyes are good as dead. “At least you got the last part right,” she adds, voice crackly, as Malfoy dabs his napkin beneath her nose. Startled by Pansy’s snort of laughter, the server finally fills Malfoy’s champagne glass. Food untouched on his plate, Malfoy picks up the glass and downs it in one go.

“Clean yourself up, you nasty bint,” he mutters, setting down the empty glass. At the other end of the table, Zabini laughs offhandedly in a booming way at a comment ofMr. Bexley’s, leaning precariously back on the hind legs of his chair so Malfoy can see him past Pansy’s cropped bob. Their eyes meet fleetingly. Malfoy looks away fast. “Toilet,” he says suddenly, and then rises up clumsily from his chair. He pushes it back in, at least, before taking off into the restaurant, narrowly avoiding a collision with a waitress Vanishing the dirty dishes from a table inside. Harry’s first instinct is to follow. _Ha, ha_ , he thinks. How well it’d ended the last time Malfoy had had more than a bit to drink and he’d stormed off for the bathroom.

Luckily — unluckily? — Blaise Zabini excuses himself from the head of the table with a kiss to his fiancée’s cheek and a pat to his future-father-in-law’s shoulder, and saunters off into the restaurant at a casual pace. Harry is forced to follow.

When Blaise enters the bathroom, Harry is instantly warped and dragged by the scruff of his neck through a wormhole to sixth year. Malfoy leans into the sinks along the far wall — which Harry can’t help but notice are in the shape of large, half-seashells. He wonders if Malfoy would think them tacky or acceptable. His weight rests against the palms of his hands, clutching at the sink like he’s about to hurl, his head hanging between bony shoulders that protrude from his blazer. It’s uncanny, the parallel, until Malfoy looks up at the sound of Zabini’s entry and meets his eyes through the mirror. He doesn’t look hunted or terrified. He just looks miserable. When Malfoy moves, Harry almost steps out of the way, as if he’s about to shoot an Unforgivable at that corner of the toilet. Then again, if he did, it would’ve already happened, and Harry would have been unaffected.

He doesn’t curse Zabini, though. He clears his throat and straightens up, smudging quickly at his eyes with his thumbs, a cold composure settling over him like frost on a dark winter’s morning.

“What’re you doing in here?” Zabini asks slowly, sticking his hands into his pockets.

Malfoy has to clear his throat again before he responds, eyes cast downward. “Must I really explain going to the toilet? Relieving myself, then, if you’d like an answer.” He hesitates, eyes flashing as he glances at Blaise through the mirror. “I’d suggest you do the same and leave. Toilets aren’t meant for confrontation.”

Zabini makes a soft sound, like a breath cut short, that Harry would’ve guessed to be a chuckle had the circumstances been completely different. He traipses toward Malfoy, rolling out his neck tiredly. “Dray, are you gonna do this every time you’re with Paloma and I? It’s getting old.”

Malfoy’s eyes narrow in the mirror. “Do what? Use the toilet? Well, I had planned on it, yes, as it is a normal and accepted human bodily function, and I don’t believe Paloma minds it so much. She’d be glad that I was rescuing myself from an impending bladder explosion. Honestly, she’d be more glad that it was me using the toilet in your flat than you, because you still spray everywhere like a twelve-year-old and get it all over the seat and the floor. But now that you’ve placed a limit on my toilet-goings, I suppose not.”

Zabini’s teeth dig into his lower lip. Harry can see the tension build in his shoulders from behind. He stops a few paces from Malfoy. “Fucking hell,” he whispers after a beat. “Can’t you ever be straight with me? Do you always have to be such a twat?”

Harry knows it’s coming from the humorless quirk to Malfoy’s lips before he even speaks. “No, I can’t, don’t you remember? I don’t do straight. I’m a monstrous poofter, I’m really fucking bent, I like cock and I like it up my arse, in my mouth, in my bloody armpit, and you don’t. You’re straight as Mini McGonagall’s fucking wand,” Malfoy mutters, now staring at his own reflection in the mirror.

Zabini looks at the ceiling with an incensed smile. “Does it always have to go like this?” he breathes. Harry worries for a moment, watching his fist clench inside the pocket of his trousers, that he’ll knock Malfoy out. It doesn’t look as if it would take much. When he removes his hand from his pocket, though, Malfoy still hasn’t said a word, resolving to gaze into the sink, and Zabini steps forward, sliding his large hand onto the small of Malfoy’s back. “Draco,” he says, voice barely above a whisper. “If… If you still need time to, y’know. If you need… to get over… I could, we could…” he’s mumbling. Harry doesn’t think he’s ever heard Blaise Zabini stammer before.

“You’re not making sense,” responds Malfoy from where his head hangs heavily between his shoulders again.

“Role reversal there, innit?” Zabini tries. Much to Harry’s surprise, Malfoy’s shoulders don’t quake with sobs, but instead a suppressed snort of laughter. Harry looks into the mirror. A smile curls on Zabini’s lips. “It’s only funny because it’s true.”

Malfoy rises quickly to his full height and turns around, taking Zabini by the collar of his shirt. Their faces are close. Harry’s been that close to Malfoy. Fuck, he’s been that close to _Malfoy_. Closer, even. He imagines his breath would be warm on Harry’s face, champagne-y, and that he’d smell like nervous sweat and florally, clean laundry. Fuck’s sake. “Are you actually saying what I think you’re saying?” Malfoy asks, his lips twitching at the corners because his lower lip is trembling. His eyes look wet.

Zabini nods once. “It’ll never happen again, though.”

Something passes over Malfoy’s face, and his nose wrinkles minutely, and Harry thinks he can read his mind: _I’ve heard that before_. And a loud crack echoes through the enormous bathroom as Malfoy slaps Zabini across the face. Zabini’s eyes go wide, his jaw drops, and he stares at Malfoy in shock before the man is crumpling before him, his fingers sinking into the front of Blaise’s shirt and his face falling to his neck. “Fuck you,” Malfoy whimpers, his knees going visibly weak as he leans into Blaise’s solid body, ankles twisting at helpless, odd angles like a drug seeping through his veins is numbing his body from the waist down. “Fuck you.” Zabini’s face is unreadable, but his hands come up to support Malfoy by his waist, enough that when Malfoy lifts his head, holding onto Zabini’s biceps, he’s able to stay upright. Harry feels his heart drop into his stomach. Possibly even out of his arse. He thinks if he said that to Ron, that he felt like he’d just shat out his heart, it would be funny. They would share a laugh. In that moment, it’s instead like a knife that’s been lodged deep into his chest, and is being cranked around there, slicing his insides, instead of being pulled right out. Malfoy’s cheeks are tear-streaked and his eyes are red. He looks soulless, tormented, and his breathing through his nose is loud. He’s tempted to leave the memory right then, swoop from the Pensieve and back into the Hall of Memory, bottle up that fucking memory of a memory of Malfoy crying and break it and forget that it’d ever existed. Instead, he’s frozen to his spot. “I’m in love with you, Blaise Zabini. I’m fucking in love with you, you bastard,” Malfoy hisses.

Zabini’s breath is shaky as he inhales and lets it out. “You’re not. You’re not, Dray. It’s not real. You think you are, because I’m one of the only three people you saw for a whole two years, and because we had sex. You’re — _attached_ because of that. Don’t you understand? Get it through your head,” he says, doing a hell of a job of keeping his voice even.

Malfoy shakes his head frantically, nails gouging into Blaise’s arms. “No. No. That’s not fucking true. I — I love you.” Malfoy has a way with words in casual conversation, Harry has to admit. But he cannot, _could_ not, for the life of him, have ever pictured Malfoy speaking confessionally. And now he knows why. “I… I love you, and I love the way you hold me, and the way you talk to me, and tease me, and put up with my shit. Blaise, please. I — I do. It hurts. It hurts me so fucking bad. Why would it hurt this much if it wasn’t real?”

“Because I’m all you have!” Zabini grits out vehemently, his nose against Malfoy’s forehead. “I’m all you fucking have. And you’re overdramatic. You always have been and always will be. You think everything’s going to change, but it won’t. You’ll still have me. Just not the way you want. The way you _think_ you want. You don’t need me like that, Draco.”

Malfoy breathes like he can’t get enough air to his lungs, in frenzied, short pulls of air, eyes squeezed shut so hard the skin of his eyelids wrinkles. “Don’t tell me I don’t know what I want,” he breathes. “I do. Why am I not good enough for you? What is it? Is it because I’m overdramatic? Is that really why?”

Blaise steps back, peeling Malfoy from his body slowly and painfully, pushing him back to lean against the sinks behind him so he has at least some semblance of support to keep him on his feet. He doesn’t say anything for a moment, and Malfoy seems to have realized that his emotions had permeated his stony surface. He looks like he’s battling between wanting to curl in on himself and resuming his always cold exterior. He does the latter, but with somewhat less dignity than Harry’s used to.

“Draco,” Blaise says slowly, pointing toward the door. “I want you to leave.” He struggles to say it, that’s clear enough to Harry. Whether or not Malfoy notices, he’s unsure. “Either you fix your face and get back out to the dinner, or you leave. Do you hear me?”

The door to the bathroom creaks open. It’s not a random restaurant patron. It’s Pansy. _Oh, the irony,_ Harry thinks. She looks between them, turns an even paler shade at the sight of Malfoy, and shuts the door behind her with a bang. “What in Salazar’s sake is going on in here?” she demands, striding quickly toward Malfoy, whose face has gone pink. She wraps her arms around his waist without even waiting for an explanation and looks accusingly at Blaise. “Well?” She doesn’t expect Malfoy to speak, apparently. “Everyone’s wondering where you two are. Paloma made some barmy joke about you two snogging in here, and I thought that’s what it was, _a joke_ , until — will someone please tell me what’s going on?” Her voice gets shriller with every word she speaks.

Malfoy’s eyes go round. He’s hugging himself while Pansy hugs him. “You told her?” he murmurs, directed at Zabini.

Zabini laughs manically, bringing his hands up to his close-cropped hair. “Of course I told her. She’s my fucking fiancée. We’re getting _married_! I couldn’t not tell her!”

Malfoy flinches at the word ‘married.’ Pansy boils. “Tell her what?!” she squawks, now retreating from Malfoy just enough to squint up at him.

Malfoy licks his lips, red from crying, red from biting. He doesn’t respond. “That Draco and I used to hook up,” Zabini says after a beat. Pansy blinks at him. “Shag, really,” he mutters. “A lot.” Malfoy’s jaw clenches.

Pansy falls silent. Harry raises an eyebrow. ‘Pansy is incredibly intuitive,’ Malfoy had told him. He’ll allow her one oversight… even if it’s a massive oversight.

“You two…” she starts, bringing one hand up to pinch at her chin, red nails against white skin. Silence fills the toilet. Pansy’s expression is calculating.

“It’s all fun and games until someone catches feelings,” Malfoy whispers, eyes downcast. Pansy’s head whips toward him. Harry hadn’t expected Zabini to hear, but then he’s snorting cruelly and turning toward the door. He wrenches it open and strides out. He takes Harry with him, leaving Pansy to gawk at Malfoy, practically petrified.

*** 

Malfoy had locked him into his own living room. One moment, Harry had been stoned as hell with Draco Malfoy in his lap, and the next, he’d been stoned as hell and sealed into his own living room, completely alone. He could’ve gotten up, he could’ve easily unlocked the door himself, but all he’d been able to do was sit there, staring emptily at the half-a-joint on the carpet that Malfoy had dropped, until Kreacher entered, his eternally-frown scrunching up distastefully at the smell. “Master, your remedies are a disgrace to the House of Black,” he’d croaked, and with a snap of his fingers, both him and the lingering scent of pot were gone.

Had they really nearly kissed a third time? Had Malfoy really ashed the spliff on his Mark? Fuck.

But nothing changes. Malfoy looks unaffected the following morning. He’s wearing long sleeves, and Harry wants to ask about the burn, but he knows always Malfoy wears long sleeves, and he’s rather confident Malfoy knows basic healing spells, as well. He greets him with a stiff ‘morning, Potter,’ and allows himself to be Apparated to the Ministry. Harry doesn’t prod. He knows better than to egg on Malfoy in the Atrium or the Auror Headquarters, where everyone could bear witness to his explosive temper. Malfoy’s, that is. Harry knows he has one, too, but he’s had so much on his mind in recent times that he thinks he’s too distracted to detonate upon irritation.

Malfoy approaches his desk at noon when Harry and Ron usually head for the Canteen like clockwork. Malfoy eyes Ron, who hovers by Harry’s side, until he retreats back to the safety of his cubicle. “I have an appointment at a shop just down the road,” he murmurs, looking right through Harry. “If you’ll allow it,” he continues through slightly gritted teeth, “Pansy would be willing to take me.”

Harry, ever the logical human being and wizard, coughs a bit and stands out of his chair. “I’ll take you,” he states. He’s reminded of the first day he’d seen Malfoy at the ministry. ‘I can volunteer,’ he’d said, a daft move in hindsight, to house Malfoy at Grimmauld Place.

Malfoy’s eyes narrow, but he doesn’t protest. “Very well.” His eyes scan Harry from head to toe, and then he shrugs. “You look Muggle enough. Please hide your wand.” Harry tucks away his memory logs and slides his wand into his jacket sleeve.

Once outside the Ministry, Harry and Malfoy walk side by side down the street, not speaking. It’s only two blocks away, the Calvin Klein shop at which Malfoy finally stops and enters. Harry follows, and the kind-faced shop assistant is clearly happy to see Malfoy, guiding him to the very back of the store and into a tidy, spacious fitting room with mirrors on all sides. He avoids looking at himself, only to swiftly regret not allowing Pansy to take his place when he sees Blaise Zabini in head to toe black on a pedestal. Harry sees his face through the mirror first, which is more than unsettling in the sense of déjà vu. He’s a far cry from the Zabini he’d tagged alongside in the memory, though. His broad shoulders are relaxed, there’s an easy, comfortable smile on his face, and when he notices Malfoy, he half-smiles charmingly without pause. He’s slowly realizing that Blaise Zabini is a difficult person to be angry with. He’s tempted to explode at him — _Why did you give me those memories? Why didn’t you love him? Why doesn’t anything make sense?_ — but instead Harry takes a seat by the door without asking permission. Malfoy doesn’t seem to notice.

“Whaddaya think?” Zabini asks by way of greeting, smoothing the jacket down his chest. It’s a marvelous fit. Not that Harry knows a thing about clothes. Or Muggle tuxes. Or anything, really.

Malfoy chuckles, hands on his hips as he steps up onto the pedestal behind Zabini. “Why you bother asking for my opinion is beyond me. I have a feeling you’ve been checking yourself out for the past ten minutes,” he says. Harry watches. Malfoy avoids Zabini’s eyes in the mirror and instead places his hands on his wide shoulders, analyzing the cut of the suit and any bits of extra fabric his eyes can find. The tuxedo is rather classic, less eccentric than Harry would’ve imagined given the image of the dress he’d seen in Malfoy’s wedding book for Paloma. But it fits Zabini like a glove, and it makes him look expensive, as if his natural, aristocratic mien doesn’t already.

“Only five,” Zabini says, and they both smile. _Is it tense? Is it strained?_ Perhaps Harry’s overanalyzing. The memory isn’t recent, by any means. There are just too many gaps he’s been left to fill in by his lonesome. Zabini locks eyes with Harry through the mirror and lifts an arm to wave at him. “Potter! How’s it, mate? Recovered from the weekend?” He smiles slyly, knowingly. Harry doubts he knows about him and Malfoy. He has a feeling the sly smile is by virtue of the unfortunate memory burden he’s placed upon Harry.

Harry stands, only because he’s too far away to hold a polite conversation, and the shop assistant, a young brunette with tawny eyes clad in a suit herself, eyes his worn sneakers and his shapeless jacket with disdain before ducking out of the room. No, he won’t steal anything. He would need Malfoy’s advice to even know what to steal. “Yeah, hey,” he says lamely, approaching the mirrors and tucking his hands into his pockets. “Thanks for having me along.” He points with his chin at Zabini’s garb. “Looks good.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Malfoy mutters, scrutinizing the way the jacket lifts to show Zabini’s shirt when his arm rises up. He tugs down on the hem experimentally, like Zabini’s his very own mannequin. “He knows nothing.”

“Only the secrets of the universe,” Zabini says, smirking at Harry and wiggling his eyebrows. His attention shifts back to Malfoy. “When are you seeing my fair lady?”

“Tomorrow,” Malfoy sighs, linking his arms behind his back and pacing in a slow circle around Zabini. “If it goes poorly, next you see me, I’ll be tarred and feathered with the hundreds of swan feathers from her skirt.” He lifts the back of the jacket to take a look at his bum, then lets it fall back into place.

“How’s it look back there?” Zabini asks.

Malfoy meets his eyes through the mirror, lips curling up at the corners mirthlessly. Harry feels like Luna for thinking this, but there’s a strangely stark contrast between Malfoy and Zabini’s _energies_. The wedding is on Sunday, and Zabini is jolly, like a Muggle weather anchor who truly loves his job. Malfoy mimics Zabini’s smiles, but if he was to have ever been a weather anchor, Uncle Vernon would’ve spent the entirety of his weather report complaining about his passive aggressive attitude and switched to the competing news channel. It’s the only way Harry can describe it. “A bit tighter than anticipated,” Malfoy answers. “You’re supposed to let yourself go _after_ you’ve secured the poor Bexley wench in your clutches. At this rate, she’ll be seduced by Potter come Sunday.” He gives Blaise’s arse a smack and then takes several step back to survey him in all his glory.

Zabini smiles wryly. Harry is confused. All of the sexual tension that had permeated the memories, that had seeped into Harry’s pores and hardened him on the spot, plagued his dreams at night, is gone. Blaise teases platonically. Malfoy teases emotionlessly. “Listen, I know Potter’s got rock-hard abs from Auror-ing, which Paloma wouldn’t mind feeling up, but a big arse isn’t so bad. Not that you’d know anything about one, Dray, with your little pancake bum. That might be too generous, actually. Americans make their pancakes rather thick. Crêpe-arse?”

Malfoy’s nostrils flare with chagrin. “That sounds vulgar. Please don’t say that again.”

Harry knows, and he knows that Blaise knows, that Malfoy has a cute bum. He is, thankfully, not stupid enough to come to the defense of Malfoy’s arse. “Crêpe-arse,” Zabini sighs blissfully, lacing his fingers behind his neck and rolling up onto the balls of his feet to watch his tux in motion. “Crêpe-arse Lucius Malfoy. Sorry, Dray. I mean — Crêpe-arse. You’ll never live this down.”

“Isn’t it horrific enough without my damned second name?”

Harry can’t stop himself from smiling. He’s forced to turn his laugh into a cough and cover his mouth with his hand. Malfoy shoots him a baleful glare. Zabini grins at Harry through the mirror. “You don’t think my arse looks bad, do you, Potter? I know you swing both ways. I’ll know if you’re lying.”

That time, Harry coughs for real. He smiles genuinely, even if he’s a tomato face at that very moment. “No. No. Looks great. Fills out the trousers nicely. Er.” He clears his throat.

Zabini looks pleased. “If my fiancée leaves me for Harry Potter, at least I’ll die knowing he liked my curves.”

“I’ve a sudden and strong urge to vomit,” Malfoy mutters and rubs at his temples. “And Potter never said he liked _your curves_ ,” he adds belatedly. “You just wrenched the compliment right out of him.”

“I’ll take what I can get.”

Malfoy stares. Then he rolls his eyes and exhales all the breath from his thin chest. “Alright. Your suit looks fine. I approve. Please don’t let the fact that I’m stellar at laundering spells encourage you to spill hot sauce onto it before the big day. Or buffalo sauce. Or any pungent condiment. I’m leaving now.” He strolls out of the fitting room. His ice-blond head reappears in the doorway moments later when Harry hasn’t followed him. “Potter, on top of overstaying your welcome, you’re allowing me to wander alone into the dangerous beyond,” he says sharply, then disappears again.

Harry blinks, then glances at Zabini, who shrugs at him. “Best be on your way, Potter. The princess can only wait so long before he throws a fit.” His voice is lower, less sprightly than it had been seconds before with Malfoy in the room. His eyes glint with something — mischief, perhaps, or the distinct air of _I know you’ve seen all my memories and now you clearly don’t know what to do with them_ — and then the shop assistant is gliding into the room toward Blaise. Their eye contact is severed and Harry’s tunnel vision dissolves.

“You’re pleased with it, I hope, Mr. Zavros?” she asks. She watches Harry over Zabini’s shoulder like he’s tracked a trail of mud all throughout the Calvin Klein shop. He might as well have.

“See you Sunday,” he says to Zabini, then excuses himself.

Malfoy stands by the doors, his arms folded over his chest as he gazes out into the street. Contrary to Zabini’s comments, his arse looks fantastic in his black trousers, and the midnight blue of his jumper makes his hair look like it’s got a silvery sheen. Harry approaches him slowly, his footsteps so silent he’s almost positive Malfoy doesn’t hear them. But he does, of course.

“Please don’t talk to me, Potter,” Malfoy murmurs, then walks out the door without holding it for Harry. It’s not an issue of politeness as much as it is an obstacle. Harry stumbles when he gets caught in the glass door on Malfoy’s tail.

“What are you so afraid of hearing?” he asks him, catching up. “I won’t — talk about you and Zabini.” _Even if it’s obvious you’re trying still to not want him._ Malfoy doesn’t answer, so then Harry grabs him by the elbow and wrenches him up against a pillar of the bank on the street corner. Malfoy fights it, tries to squirm away, eyeing the passersby in embarrassment, but Harry’s already rolled up the sleeve of his jumper, gripping tightly at Malfoy’s wrist and thumbing the little, circular burn by the mouth of the black snake. It’s been healed over, as he’d suspected. And it’ll probably scar. Now that he’s seen it, though, Malfoy’s arm, he’s not sure that scar will be particularly conspicuous among the rest. He blinks slowly and meets Malfoy’s eyes, who returns his gaze in silence before shoving Harry back by the chest and sauntering back onto the sidewalk. He’s not fast enough that he can escape him completely, though.

“I’m not a psychopath,” Malfoy says stiffly without even looking Harry’s way as they walk in tandem. “I’m stable. I’ve been — _treated_. Merlin. Why am I even —?” He pauses for a moment, mouth open, as if he’s trying to choose his words carefully. “Look, Potter. Just. Don’t report me, or anything. To St. Mungo’s. I’m just numb there. Nothing hurts. I can’t really feel it. I tried to get it removed a few years back. It didn’t work. Just destroyed a bunch of nerve endings.”

Harry’s brows furrow. He nearly smacks into a passing businessman, excuses himself a millisecond before he does. “I wasn’t going to report you,” he mumbles, slightly bewildered. “Just wanted to check that you were okay.”

Malfoy’s eyes roll. “Yes, Potter. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of a _boo-boo_ when said _boo-boos_ transpire.”

Harry swallows thickly. Pinches the inside of his left forearm. Wonders what it’d be like to not feel anything there. And then, of course, he starts to smile. “You locked me in my own living room,” he comments idly.

Malfoy sucks his lower lip into his mouth as they lodge themselves into the outdoor Apparition point that’s nothing more than the cramped few feet between two buildings. Malfoy pastes himself against the opposite wall, as usual, as far away from Harry as the space allows. Then he bites his lip, gazing up at the ceiling as Harry idly puts his hand to Malfoy’s elbow. “I only meant to vigorously close the door,” he says as his gaze flashes to the pedestrians passing by. “I’m sure you could’ve wordless-wandless-blown-it-up if you’d so pleased.”

Harry shrugs, not at all modest. “You’re right.”

Malfoy exhales through his teeth. Harry thinks he’s holding back a smile. “I always am.” 

*** 

That’s the friendliest that his and Malfoy’s conversation gets in the days that follow. Harry thinks Malfoy looks a little balder everyday, like he’s been pulling out his hair, but for his safe, un-hexed bollocks’ sake, he doesn’t dare mention it. He lets Pansy take Malfoy to Paloma’s final dress fitting, just because he’d rather have a bacon sarnie in the Canteen than feel useless and awkward and look Paloma in the eye knowing she _knows_ , she knows that Malfoy has fucked her fiancé, and possibly that he’d been head over heels for him. He’s not sure if Blaise would have left that detail out. Malfoy’s in his room more often than not, Iggy-and-Tilly-made croissants are baking in Harry’s oven more often than not, and he’s, well. Coping with the unforgettable sensation of Malfoy in his lap by smoking up more often than not. Malfoy is a good enough actor to fool Blaise into thinking he’s lost interest, but not Harry. Or Pansy, he supposes. Harry’s always been a shit liar, a stammering, this-excuse-sounds-like-I’ve-pulled-it-out-my-arse-but-I’ll-use-it-anyway kind of liar, and how he decides to go about dealing with this shortcoming is his own concern. Smoking up and jacking off to one sexy, cold, blond curmudgeon seems to be the way to go, since up and forgetting about him isn’t something Harry thinks he can handle. He’d just explode of sexual frustration, and probably end up doing it in front of Parkinson, who would just laugh her head off.

Harry thinks he’s okay, though. His wrist is sore, at least, and that’s a little pathetic, because he’s just an actual big fucking _wanker_ , but it’ll hold him over through the hell that will be Blaise Zabini’s wedding. He can’t even pinpoint what exactly will make it so hellish. He just knows it will be.

Harry stands before the shoddy, cracked, dusty mirror attached to his dresser. He doesn’t allow Kreacher to clean his room for many a reason, but now, he’s regretting it a bit, because it’s been ages since he’s been to a charity ball and though he’d worn dress robes, Danica had been there to do up his tie and fix his hair for him before she’d assumed her position on his arm for the evening. She’s in Paloma’s bridal party, though, and won’t be seeing him until he and Malfoy arrive at the venue.

Speaking of the devil, Malfoy bursts into his room, the stress in his pinched face commingling with horror at the state of Harry’s bedroom and pure hopelessness as he looks Harry over once.

“Good grief. I can barely breathe in here,” Malfoy mutters to himself, flicking his wand at the window to open it a smidge. Harry’s surprised, initially, by the lack of abuse, but Malfoy only needs to breathe and get oxygen to his brain before he rounds on him. “What the fuck, Potter? It’s as if you never learned to dress yourself. We’re leaving in _five_ and you look like you just rolled out of bed with mystery brunette — did you even shower? Please tell me you showered.” He takes stock of Harry’s ill-fitted Muggle suit, his lips twitching anxiously. “Did you borrow that potato sack you’ve got on from Hagrid? _Circe_ , Potter. You’re a lost cause.”

Malfoy, on the other hand, is what has Harry silent. His suit is royal blue, slim-fitted, and he looks fucking unbelievable, down to his black dragonhide shoes and the slim, black, ribbon tied into a bow and wrapped around his collar in lieu of a bowtie.

Harry should compliment him. Perhaps it’d calm him down. He should do _something_ , but all he does is wheeze, because Malfoy’s cold hands are plunging down the front of his trousers. He’s tucks Harry’s shirt in, first in the front and then in the back, his fingertips hastily grazing his arse. _Merlin’s pants, fucking fuck_. His trousers are undone, so Malfoy buttons and zips them, and as he stands there, smelling expensive and luscious with an undertone of nervous sweat, nearly stepping on Harry’s toes, he does up Harry’s tie for him with nimble fingers. Without magic. All of it without magic. “Thanks,” Harry mutters. Malfoy doesn’t meet his eyes. He buttons Harry’s jacket, smooths it out, and then takes a few, cursory steps back. That’s when he whips out his wand, and initially, Harry has no idea what’s bloody going on until he feels his trousers tighten around his thighs and his jacket across his shoulders. In the crusty mirror, he looks less like he’s gone shopping in Vernon Dursley’s closet.

“Do I even bother trying?” Malfoy’s murmuring under his breath as he sets his wand on Harry’s dresser, his hands carding into his hair. Which. Is. Completely uncalled for. Harry’s eyes close involuntarily. He’s half-hard. While Malfoy messes with his hair, sending shivers across Harry’s scalp and goosebumps running rampant down his spine, Harry’s fingers twitch at his sides. His brain moves faster than his body — _take Malfoy, bend him over the goddamn dresser_ — so Malfoy’s already picking up his wand and walking purposefully toward Harry’s door by the time he reaches out. “Two minutes, Potter,” he states, stopping momentarily in the doorway to give Harry a second once-over. He sighs, shakes his head, and then he’s gone.

*** 

Everyone around him is teary. They’re all tipsy from mimosas. There’s a lot of women. Harry’s never met half of them. He’s convinced it’s not even his oversized ego — _not his own words_ — and that the ladies are actually all staring at him like he’s a juicy hunk of steak. Danica holds fast to his arm, her delicate fingers rubbing up and down. She looks lovely in a lacy red-orange dress that matches her shoes and her lipstick,and he’s already told her so three times. She’s kissed him each time.

They’re in a second floor room in Shafiq Manor. It’s ornate and Victorian. The thrum of conversation is soft and comfortable until a collective scream arises as Paloma enters, practically dragging Malfoy behind her. She’s stumbling over the hem of her dress, as is he, trying to magic up the tiny buttons running down the length of her spine without jabbing her in the back with his wand. Paloma squeals in reply, and Harry thinks he’s witnessing some sort of women-only ritual as they all crowd her and wail incomprehensibly and clutch at each other with tipsy smiles and tears. Even Danica is in the mix. Harry runs a hand through the back of his hair, and Malfoy, now walled out by overeager bridesmaids, looks at him resentfully. When they finally draw back, a few, white feathers float through the air, a few tears run down soft cheeks, including Paloma’s. Malfoy is finally free to do up the rest of her dress. The skirt of it swells with fluttering swan feathers that float with some sort of magic, and the bodice hugs Paloma’s body all the way up to her neck with delicate ivory embroidery. Those are Danica’s words, though, that she’s whispering about into Harry’s ear. He’s watching Malfoy lean over, dab a tear from her cheek with his thumb, and kiss her there, before seeming to bid her goodbye. Harry panics momentarily. He feels like a squirrel about to be left in a den of werewolves… not that Malfoy’s ever brought him any particular comfort. He squeezes Danica’s hand and presses it against his own thigh, holding his own as Malfoy disappears. Hermione and Ron should arrive soon. He’ll be fine. And not ravaged by inebriated bridesmaids.

***

Draco stares past Luna Lovegood’s shoulder at the altar. The arch above it is constructed of white silks secured to entwined wildflowers, billowing in the light breeze of the late afternoon. He lifts his wand and flicks it absently to trim a voluptuous fern that’s making it seem too right-heavy. The clipped leaves vanish. Lovegood doesn’t flinch.

“They’re silly, the Muggles, when it comes to wearing and owning objects they think will bring them prosperity or peace or emotional healing,” she’s saying softly. Draco regards the plums dangling from her earlobes. “Like healing crystals. They’re just rocks! Albeit very lovely ones, in very lovely colors, but at the end of the day, they’re just rocks. You’d be surprised, though, Draco, how crazy Muggles go for them when they’re actually effective. If you enchant them with just the subtlest Cheering Charm — nothing blatantly obvious, of course — they fly off the shelves. The amethyst, the quartz… Suddenly everyone feels more confident, more content.The sweet Muggles, they’ll never find out the truth, but the Ministry insists that it’s illegal and a breach of the Statute. They’ve taken away my retail license three times. I’m not sure how they’re able to do that if they never give it back to me in between. Anyway, I just open up a new store in a different spot every time. It’s rather like hide and seek.” Luna smiles airily.

Draco’s not sure how he’s ended up in a one-sided conversation with Lovegood. If his blood pressure wasn’t skyrocketing, he’d compliment her on the oddly fetching clash of her cobalt blue heels against her lavender dress. Instead, he just hums in acknowledgment. The guests are just beginning to trickle in, emerging from the mansion’s Floo and making their way out to the ceremony space outside. A familiar face comes into view over Lovegood’s shoulder, beelining straight for Draco.

“Blondie, as I live and breathe!”

“Clemence?” Draco mutters, cutting Luna off mid-sentence. He touches her shoulder apologetically as Creasey edges into their little circle.

‘Edges’ is an understatement. He wraps Draco up in a hug, squeezing him brazenly around his waist, patting a bit too close to his bum as he draws back. Draco blinks, bewildered. Clemence doesn’t look half bad. He’s shaved the prepubescent-esque moustache he sometimes sports, so his pretty face is clean and soft, and his suit looks to be of quality, though it clings to him and makes him look only weedier. It’s white, though. Clemence is dressed in all white at a wedding, the dolt. He’s beaming, all of his charmingly not-straight-but-not-crooked teeth on show. “What are you doing here?” Draco asks slowly. He hopes for his blood pressure’s sake that Potter isn’t nearby. The last thing he needs is tension between guests at his wedding. Blaise’s wedding. _His_ wedding, though, really. The show would never go on without him. And he’s even got the shrunken rings in his back pocket.

“I’m Pansy’s plus one,” Clemence answers brightly, affecting his usual, at-ease stance, hands in his trouser pockets.

Draco lets out an unexpected hoot of laughter, but Clemence is dead serious, judging by his mild confusion at this reaction. Draco clears his throat. “Ah,” is all he can say for a moment. Pansy is an idiot. An attention-hungry idiot. “Well, erm. Congratulations, for, for that. Clemence Creasey, meet Luna Lovegood.” He touches Clem’s shoulder to angle him toward Lovegood.

Clemence isn’t interested. “He’s not interested in me, Draco,” says Lovegood.

“Who’s your plus one, then, blondie?” Clemence asks.

“I don’t have a plus one. I planned the wedding. I _am_ the wedding. _The wedding_ doesn’t get a plus one.” Draco smiles in a way that pulls painfully at his face. He adjusts a chair in the very last row by a few degrees — it’s crooked — and decidedly glides away from the two of them to the front row, where Paloma’s parents are sitting and chatting with more golden-blond cousins, Pansy a few seats away from them, appearing to mind her own business but undoubtedly eavesdropping to some degree. Draco has to admit that she’s outdone herself. Her black brocade blazer buttons at her navel, her chest bare beneath, and her matching black shorts aren’t quite as titchy as the ones she’d worn to TIT training, but her pale legs look marvelous all the way down to her pointed heels. He sits down beside her, elbows on his knees, and smiles faintly down at her tits. “Ready for dinner already? I do hope Weasley enjoys chicken breast.”

The swat to his chest is softer than usual, and after, Pansy’s fingers curl into his shoulder warmly. “Take that back,” she mutters. Draco can tell from her tone that she’s restraining herself, that he’s easy to read as a trashy Muggle romance novel despite the equanimity he’s been trying to affect for the past several hours. “He’s not here yet, is he?”

“Weasley? Doubt it. Would’ve heard him by now. Then again, this isn’t really his scene. Weasel in a fox den.”

Pansy huffs a laugh and strokes her knuckles against his jaw. “You look fit.”

Draco realizes he’s been staring at the grass underfoot, drumming the pads of his fingers together, and remembers to flash her a quick smile as he looks up and back down. Then he recalls. “I hope you’ve got a clever explanation as to why Clemence Creasey is here, spreading the virus that is the rumor you’ve brought him as your date.”

Pansy sighs, retracts her hand. “I couldn’t come _empty-handed_ , Draco. That should be obvious enough.” She drums her glossy, black fingernails against her knee. “And he likes to chase you as much as I like watching him chase you.”

Draco laughs halfheartedly. The seats are beginning to fill up. The sun is just starting its descent toward the horizon, still warming everyone’s faces. Draco rises up, hands on his hips, and turns to gaze critically at the ceremony. The rows and rows of white chairs are neat, except for the one Potter sits in five rows back, which is turned toward Danica Dawlish and interrupting Draco’s flawless seating matrix. Draco rolls his eyes. The path between the bride and groom’s sides is littered with pale flower petals, not an awkward, empty gap in sight. Draco had made sure of that, even if the sticking charms were finicky on so many petals so very small. A canopy of abundant, suspended baby’s breath floats delicately above the area, casting intricate shadows on the guests’ faces. The fireflies haven’t emerged yet, but they will. He swallows against the lump in his throat.

“Not to be a wet blanket, but you should probably find Blaise, Best Man.” Pansy pokes him in the ankle with the point of her shoe. “Everything’s perfect. Breathe, Draco. And if someone tries to put a single hair out of place, I’ll ignore my first instinct to _Incendio_ them on the spot and instead transport them to Siberia so we won’t get ashes and bones everywhere.”

Draco bites the inside of his lip. Right. The groom. He leans over to kiss Pansy’s cheek and receives a squeeze to the arse in return. He catches Potter’s eye as he strides past him and toward the mansion. There’s a question in his gaze that Draco doesn’t care to interpret right then.

Blaise is in the groom’s quarters, as Draco has designated them, on the third floor. Greg is plastered already. So much for the fond memories. Blaise, however, sits on the very edge of his seat, brandy gone untouched on the glass table beside him. His left foot taps madly, his eyes unfocused. Draco goes to him, takes his hands and squats on the floor without letting his knees touch the dusty carpet. Greg hoots obnoxiously from where he’s peering out the window and watching the ceremony fill up.

“Shut up, you great tosspot,” Draco shouts, working his thumbs into Blaise’s brown, tense hands. He turns his head toward him, allows himself to smile meagerly. He’s fine. Draco is perfectly fine. Blaise is his mate, has been for years. Their touches have held many a meaning in the time they’ve known each other, but this one — Draco isn’t clutching to him for dear life, begging him to stay. He isn’t walloping him for wearing Draco’s monogrammed underwear on his head like he did, twice, in fifth year. Blaise is the one feeling all the feelings. Draco tries to read his eyes. Nerves, apprehension, giddiness, love. Love that will be the death of him if he doesn’t pledge it soon enough, validate it, officiate it for everyone to see. Blaise is feeling. Draco can’t be. “Hey,” he mutters, their foreheads hovering close. He lets his own eyes blur from proximity. He doesn’t need to look at Blaise’s near-black freckles, or his eyelashes, or the bitten, chapped part of his lower lip to say this. “You gonna pussy out on me, or what?” His lips curl up lopsidedly. “Make me drag your arse down the aisle?”

Blaise exhales, trembling slightly, and then shakes his head, barely discernible. “Don’t,” he mumbles.

Draco’s brows draw together. “I — what?”

“Don’t use the phrase ‘pussy out on me.’ It’s mine. Sounds wrong coming from you.” Blaise smiles, attempts to relax the clench of his fists so he can tighten them around Draco’s fingers instead.

Draco snorts in relief. He drops his head to rest against Blaise’s knee. He feels Blaise’s racing pulse through his wrist, feels his sweat start to gather on Draco’s palms, too. “Arse,” he grumbles. Then, a pause. “Guess what I’ve got in my pocket?”

“Better be the fucking rings, Dray, or I’ll —“

“A vial of revival potion. In case you keel over when she comes out.” Draco smiles to himself, his mouth against Blaise’s knee before he picks up his head. “You just might. She looks… otherworldly.” He looks at his own fingers in Blaise’s grasp. They’re turning a pleading purple color. “And the rings, of course.”

“That’s reassuring.”

Draco stands and hauls Blaise onto his feet. He stumbles into Draco’s chest slightly but doesn’t let go of his fingers. “It’s time, yeah? My appendages have lost circulation, and if you don’t get out there soon, we’ll have a blubbering bride, three black, cold, very dead fingers, and a fiery Mrs. Prairie Bexley on our hands.”

Blaise shudders and releases Draco’s digits without apology. Draco tries to thump him encouragingly on the shoulder. He doesn’t know if he misses, considering he’s a bit numb in the finger department. “That woman is a frightening force of nature,” Blaise breathes.

“Best go get lawfully inducted into her family.”

Blaise looks up and smiles at Draco, flushed and genuine, nodding at nothing and everything and shaking out his hands. _Thank you_ , his eyes say, and he thinks Blaise might even say it aloud until fifteen stone of Greg comes flying at them, arms wrapping around both of their necks. Draco smells Theo’s atrocious cologne as he comes up on the other side, spindly arms snaking around them all. Merlin. He does not like group hugs. Blaise is chuckling, though.

“ _Fuck_ , first of us to go. It’s really happening, isn’t it?” Greg whimpers, his breath 50% Ogden’s Old in Draco’s face.

“Nobody’s dying, Greg.” Theo pats Blaise on the back. Draco smiles ruefully. No, if they were talking deaths, Blaise wouldn’t have been the first of them to go.

“Cheers,” Blaise laughs, his forehead warm against Draco’s shoulder.

“This is darling, and all.” There’s a flash of light. They all abruptly break apart. Pansy stands in the doorway, ebony hair brushing her sharp jaw as she shakes her head in amusement. She’s holding a camera. “But you fuckers have missed the wedding. She’s Mrs. Paloma Potter now, all because you were in here having a cuddle. Or an orgy. Not sure what I’ve walked in on.”

“Potter may like my curves, but that is _not bloody likely_!” Blaise hollers with renewed vigor, and nudges past Draco, charging out the door. Greg stumbles after him and Theo follows with slightly more grace. Draco feels drained, like his brain has melted inside his head and dripped out onto the floor through the soles of his feet. His smile at Pansy says as much. She takes his hand and squeezes. _You’ve done well_.

 _Thankfully, there’s still a full evening left for everything to go to shit_ , Draco thinks.

*** 

The sun is burning orange, verging on pink, by the time the ceremony begins. The fireflies set in. Malfoy stands ramrod straight to the right of the altar. Paloma’s dress floats around her like a halo for her feet. Blaise Zabini, stately and suave as he is, tears up at the sight of her. They exchange vows, and with the help of a _Sonorus_ , every guest is wrapped up in the warmth of their binding words. Danica cries against Harry’s shoulder. Malfoy’s breaths are punctuated by deeper, shakier ones that beg desperately for strength. When the newly-weds walk down the aisle, hand in hand, everyone tosses at them handfuls of glimmering, iridescent dust from the little baggies that had been tucked under their chairs. It dissolves into the air and onto skin and tongues, tasting of candyfloss. Blaise sweeps Paloma off her feet. The party heads into the ballroom of the Manor, the one that Malfoy’s transformed into an enchanted forest.

Seeing his reflection in the white marble floor is strange when, looking up, the ceiling of the ballroom seems nonexistent with its distant treetop canopy. Ron nearly walks into a tree, too busy focusing on the lotus flowers floating between the sparse but large trunks, the eyes of the flowers flickering with embedded candles. A faint, purpley mist floats ethereally through the immense space, and if he squints, Harry can see the distant tables laden with food. Though he can’t make out what’s being served, Malfoy’s silhouette is distinct as he bends over in conversation with a house-elf. There’s somewhat of a clearing in the trees where the music, sounding as if it’s descending from the heavens, resonates, and beyond them, clusters of white-clothed tables.

“Merlin almighty,” Ron practically shrieks when a hummingbird flutters right up to him, his eyes crossing to look at it. When it flits off, he casts Harry a doubtful look.

“I think I remember Acromantulas being on the list of creatures Malfoy was breeding for this occasion,” Harry says offhandedly. Danica laughs and Ron scoffs, but Harry thinks there’s a note of genuine fear under there. “I kid, I kid. I never saw any list. Never saw anything of any of this shit. Don’t know how he managed to pull this off from the confines of my house.”

“Organization, communication, and both trustworthy and trusting employees, I’d imagine,” Hermione says from Ron’s other side. Ron makes an apathetic noise. Hermione’s eyes narrow and she lets go of his arm. “As if you could manage anything of this scale, Ronald.”

“Then it’s bloody good I didn’t become a sodding party planner,” Ron answers defensively, reaching for Hermione’s arm. She begrudgingly consents to being drawn in as they traipse toward the tables in search of their names. “Not saying it isn’t — er, fantastically bizarre. It’s just a bit over-the-top.”

Harry meets Danica’s eyes and shrugs slightly. He knows better than to try and mediate. At a table on the very fringe of Malfoy’s forest, they find their names on neat place cards, and Harry pulls out Danica’s chair for her. Ron frowns at the violin hovering over the center of their table, playing itself.

“Hi, friends!” Paloma flounces into their little, isolated bubble, placing her hands on Harry and Hermione’s shoulders respectively. “Just making the rounds. How are you all? Is everything okay for you? Isn’t it gorgeous?”

Harry smiles at Hermione, who winks at him subtly. “That was a beautiful ceremony, Paloma. Congratulations,” she says softly, tilting her head in that way that makes her doe eyes always seem so believable.

Paloma giggles as she fans out her left hand’s fingers. “Thank you, Hermione. I feel… Like I’ve changed. Spiritually. I’m not Miss Paloma Bexley anymore. I’m Mrs. Blaise Zabini. Like I’ve got a second soul now, but attached to my own.”

Hermione’s smile falters. Like Harry, she’s never been very good at lying, but her eyes are her worst traitor. “Right,” she chuckles. “Surely you’re still your own person, though. Marriage hasn’t changed your identity. You’re not… an extension of Blaise.”

Paloma just looks curiously at Hermione, her smile befuddled.

“Are you hyphenating?” Hermione asks quickly, just so the music-filled silence doesn’t stretch too long between them. “Your surnames?”

Paloma laughs merrily. “No, of course not. I’m taking his name. It’s so… Italian. Not nearly as homely as _Bexley_.” When Hermione doesn’t respond and seems to cringe at this answer, Paloma blinks her big, blue eyes at her and Harry, then touches their waists. “Anyway. The honey mead is delicious. Try it! The food should be out soon, too. And _dance_! Please, please dance, for my sake! See you later!” She retreats to Danica, whom she embraces.

Ron, biting the end of his fork, looks uncertainly at Hermione. “What was _that?_ ”

She smooths out her skirt and lowers herself down into the chair beside Ron. “What was what?”

“You getting all — judgey. About Paloma.”

Harry exhales. Danica smiles sympathetically at him over Paloma’s shoulder. She’s still chattering to her. Harry’s only half-listening on the off-chance that Ron does say something especially dense and he needs to swoop in. Malfoy’s still by the buffet, lifting the cloches to check on every food item in the superfluous array. There’s a tower of artfully arranged fruit by him, grapes cascading like a waterfall. “I’m not _judgey_. I just think that in this day and age, it shouldn’t be so odd for someone to hyphenate their surname with their partner’s. Or keep their own surname. Surely it isn’t so important that the Zabini family _produce a male heir to carry on the family name_. That’s about as ludicrous a concern as pure bloodlines.” Hermione drops her fingers, which had been air-quoting, and levels Ron with her gaze. All he does is raise his eyebrows and clear his throat. His smile is a cry for help as he looks at Harry.

“Food? Honey mead?” he suggests. “Lots of honey mead?”

*** 

“Iggy, I could kiss you,” Draco sighs, surveying the immaculate buffet table and shaking his head slowly. He glances at the elf, contemplating for a moment. “You know what? I will.” He bends down, takes Iggy’s leathery face in his hands, and presses a kiss to the crown of his head.

“Master,” Iggy chortles bashfully. “Young Master should waits until he sees the desserts.”

Draco cracks a smile, eyes on the lavish spread yet again. It’s one less worry off his mind. “Young Master might be dead before then,” he mutters. At the terror that fills Iggy’s eyes, he lifts up a palm. “Jokes, Iggy. It’s a joke.” The tables are starting to fill up, the alcohol begins to circulate. Paloma’s gaggle of blond cousins dances between the trees while the bride herself floats from table to table attending to her subjects. A butterfly breezes past Draco’s shoulder. Weasley and Granger are arguing — Draco hopes Weasley is losing — while Potter looks bored and despondent beside them. Not for long, though. Just as they lock eyes, Danica Dawlish beckons Potter onto his feet, because the floating string orchestra has quieted and the Weird Sisters’ newest single is reverberating through the ballroom, bouncing off the trunks of the trees. Paloma’s father appears beside Draco, touching his shoulder and speaking kind words he can’t quite register, compliments for his planning he won’t be able to accept until the night is complete and he’s collapsed into his bed in Potter’s home. _His_ bed. Mr. Bexley’s face blurs slightly in his vision as he gives him an estranged half-smile, nodding along to his baritone words. It’s not his bed. It’s Potter’s bed. One of Potter’s many beds. He supposes if the bed he’d transfigured the current one from was Potter’s, it remains Potter’s bed. Or does it? Does a porcupine belonging to no one but the wilderness or itself become a wizard’s property once it’s transfigured into a hairbrush? He doesn’t think he wants to own Potter’s bed. It’s not, thankfully, Potter’s primary bed, the one of which he never seems to change the sheets. Draco only realizes he’s frowning outwardly when Mr. Bexley’s tone becomes hesitant. He says something like _thank you, Jeff, would you please excuse me?_ before waltzing off and plucking a flute of champagne from a self-replenishing tray. He weaves through the tables, an absent, contrived smile on his face as he nods to his — Blaise’s and Paloma’s — guests and ghosts his wand over awry table settings to fix them. Pansy catches him by his trouser pocket when he nearly glides past her without noticing. Her blazer has loosened and slouched with movement and her tits look a bit like they’re resting on a platter for the world to see, but Draco knows better than to enforce modesty.

“Garçon, I know you’re terribly busy, but would you mind getting me another of these?” Pansy asks him, releasing her hold on his pocket and presenting to him her empty glass. She’s seated at a table with just Clemence by her side. It’s the foremost table; the place cards circling it have Draco’s name inscribed, Paloma and Blaise's, Paloma’s parents', and others' whom Draco only knows by name but not face. It’s empty but for the two of them, though.

“I can do it,” Creasey offers good-naturedly, not aware enough to see through the thick, thundering wall of Pansy’s sarcasm. She ignores him, holds her glass out of his reach. Someone brushes past Draco, rubs a bit too close to him. The ballroom is massive, yet Draco wonders if he’d grown too many trees for it, because it suddenly feels very hot and cramped.

“Why are you wandering around like the help? This is a party,” she demands, pencilled-in brows crinkled, then looks vastly delighted when her glass refills of its own accord. It’s miraculous, at times, how polar her moods can be. Perhaps that’s why they’re friends. “Did you do this?” She gestures to the glass and then takes a sip.

Draco did everything. “I _am_ the wedding,” he mutters as a blanket explanation to both her questions.

“At the moment, you’re anything but the life of the party,” Pansy says and stands up to fix the ribbon around Draco’s neck. Egad! He’s been so preoccupied he’s hardly glanced in a mirror. He could look like the barmy German-gone-American Muggle with the wild, white hair and the mass-energy equations in the Muggle Studies textbook and he would never know. “The food is out, people will be content for at _least_ an hour, at which point it’ll be acceptable for you to go and fuss over pudding.” Draco grimaces, passing his flute of champagne from hand to hand. Pansy glances over his shoulder, but before Draco can turn to see what’s captured her attention, or _whom_ , a chair screeches against the marble floor as Pansy drags Clemence out from the table. “Clem, go dance with this fool.”

Draco blinks. He doesn’t dance if it’s not a ridiculous Pureblood Viennese Waltz, and he’s rather certain that’s not possible to the tune of an old Hobgoblins hit. Clemence is on his feet, offering Draco his arm, a smug smile plastered across his face. At his hesitance, Clemence says, “I’ll lead, blondie. Don’t you worry.” Pansy pats Draco’s cheek encouragingly, and, still silent, he swallows down his champagne, nostrils flaring a bit at the bubbling.

“You’re going to regret this,” he mutters to Clemence, but his skinny arm crowds Draco into his side.

“I’ve never regretted a second I’ve spent by your side. That won’t change now,” Clemence oozes, eyebrows bouncing. The twitching scowl that comes to Draco’s lips only has him grinning wider, his long fingers squeezing Draco’s side. “Ease up, blondie. You’ll wrinkle.”

Draco sighs. “My father did wrinkle prematurely.” His temperature climbs as the heat from the jumping, gyrating bodies gets closer. Potter twirls Dawlish in a circle, and Draco has to press closer to Clemence to avoid getting whipped by her hair. Rather quickly, though, a strange look comes over Potter’s face as he notices them in passing. Clemence taps Potter’s shoulder with his fist, the joy on his face unfading.

“‘Sup, partner?” he calls to Potter over the music. Potter smiles curtly and trades Danica’s hands for her waist, his eyes lingering on Draco, whose arms are rigidly folded over his chest. It’s at that second that Draco wishes he didn’t always exude his natural air of _I don’t fucking want to be here_. He remembers Potter’s livid eyes when they’d been at Shafiq Manor for the very first time; what he’d said, exactly, has slipped his mind, but he knows he must have mentioned Clemence Creasey, fucking, and Potter’s desk at the Ministry all in one breath. He tries to invade Potter’s mind, wade through the sea that is his Savior’s ego to picture just what had passed through it as Clemence had followed Draco to the toilets at The Handmaiden that one night. It’d been most virginal, Draco’s cathartic, melodramatic complaining to Creasey’s listening ears, and had happened for all of three minutes before Potter had burst in, but he longs to knows what he might have suspected of the two of them. He swallows, tasting champagne and his own mouth in that way one does when they’ve eaten nothing for Merlin knows how long, and relaxes his arms. Clemence looks concerned when Draco withdraws, but it’s only to swivel toward him, curl his fingers into the collar of his white shirt, lifting his chin just enough that he can look down his nose into Creasey’s eyes.

“I can’t dance,” says Draco softly, but he thinks Clemence is analyzing him close enough to be able to read his lips, “so why don’t you just snog me senseless?”

It’s like a hasty _Lumos_ , like a water glass shattering on a concrete floor, like plunging feet-first into a lake when Clemence’s eyes are swallowed by his pupils and he seizes Draco by his hipbones. Draco parts his lips so Clemence doesn’t need to do it for him, the tension coiled up in his muscles transferring from his body to Clem’s as he scrambles for a steady hold around his neck. The first thing Draco feels is his hot breath, quickly followed by his eager tongue, and although their first kiss in Potter’s parlour had been unremarkable, it’s almost as if Clemence has taken notes since then, practiced, because the way his bony arms envelop Draco and grapple at his lower back and his arse actually light a flame in his stomach. The music floats in Draco’s one ear and out the other, and he thinks they’re moving to it, but he’ll leave that up to Clemence. He’s almost forgotten who he’s holding as he rests his weight lazily against the balls of his feet and lets Clemence dig his fingertips where Draco’s bum meets his thigh and lets him lick a line over his cupid’s bow pornographically and bite and suck and make an utter mess. He’s not unattractive whatsoever, he’s not cruel, he smells good and he has a weight to him that holds Draco up despite having elbows as sharp as knives, and Draco thinks the only reason he dislikes him so much is because he’s so _good_. And the thinks the reason he likes him so much is that, when he cracks his eyes open and noses mindlessly into his brown curls as Clemence’s mouth moves to his ear and the soft, fuzzy part of his skin just below it, Potter’s guaranteed to be watching, swaying to the beat of a Celestina Warbeck ballad with his fingers laced in the mystery brunette’s, but his eyes on the two of them. He wonders vaguely, as Clemence bites hard enough to bruise and Draco grunts at the back of his throat, if they make a pretty picture, both of them tall and all legs and a harmonious palette of blue and white and cream together. He’s hardly drunk, so when the thought passes through his mind that he would let Clemence fuck him if Potter was watching, he can only attribute it to his recent madness. He’s still holding Potter’s gaze hostage, dark though he knows his eyes are green because his fans over in the _Prophet’s Celebs and Gossip_ never fail to wax poetic on them. He’s burning at the core of him, wherever that may be, thinks Potter might be burning, too, and Draco’s only mildly horrified to feel that he’s still smiling, doesn’t think he’s spent this long with an undoubtedly idiotic and hazy smirk on his face in a while that wasn’t ill-intentioned. His eyes don’t shut as Clemence, who’s left a vulgar trail of saliva on his neck, comes back up not for air but to own his mouth. He’s _hard_ , good God, against Draco’s hip, and Draco’s hands slip down his firm chest just to put a smidgen of distance between them, because Draco thinks he might be halfway there, too, what with the way Clemence’s hand that isn’t now domineering his jaw is working its way beneath his blazer, a few fingers tucked and at home beneath the waistband of his trousers. His eyes have closed — unconsciously, he thinks — but Potter’s face is burned into the insides of his eyelids.

“Sorry, mate, urgent best man business,” says a very familiar voice from behind Draco, a voice he can only assume is the meaning for why he’s being torn from Clemence Creasey’s surprisingly satisfying grasp. Blaise’s hand closes around Draco’s upper arm, and he only gets a chance to give Clemence a meek shrug and hide a wry smile against his hand as he wipes his wet mouth on the back of it, because he’s halfway across the ballroom by the time his feet start to work in tandem with his reflexes. He dodges a low-hanging branch that’s close to bitch-slapping him in Blaise’s wake, and by then, his short-lived bliss has dissipated.

“Dare I ask why you’re not with your wife right now?” Draco mutters, back to scowling. He can feel Blaise’s bruising grip burst blood vessels in his arm. And he’s mad for liking it.

Blaise shoves open the door to the men’s. Draco had forgotten to check on the toilets since his arrival that day. A nice toilet, a lavish one with ornamented mirrors and warmly glowing sconces and fringed ottomans, is one of Draco’s favorite things. A sterile toilet with harsh, glaring light makes any and all toilet-business much less enjoyable — hence his going all out on the toilets at the venue. Blaise shoves Draco down onto one of the aforementioned ottomans, which slides against the floor a bit with the force of it. There’s a vein in Draco's forehead that Pansy likes to poke fun at (and physically poke at) whenever he’s truly furious. Draco thinks he can feel it pulsing as Blaise paces back and forth in front of him, his brown palms dragging over his face, almost as if in… anguish.

“Will you tell me what the hell this is about?” presses Draco.

“This is my wedding, Draco. You’re at my _wedding_. Not the XXL Gays’ Night at the Cock and Cum club in Ibiza,” Blaise says dryly, evasively.

“Is it? I'd been wondering where all the greased up, shirtless blokes were,” Draco mutters, fingers curving around the edge of the ottoman into its gratifyingly stiff fabric.

That’s when Blaise looks at him, his jaw set and his gaze intense. Draco can’t believe his eyes. They widen. And then he bursts into hysterical laughter. When was the last time he laughed for humor’s sake and not because he’s being headfucked?

“What the fuck do you want from me?” he breathes. Blaise doesn’t answer instantly, his lovingly fitted jacket tight around the bulging muscle of his arms as he holds his hands against his hips. If he’s trying to intimidate Draco, it’s not working. He's seen this too many a time.

The door slams open loudly, creaking on its hinges as the handle hits the adjacent wall. Draco winces at the collision. It’ll leave a dent, a dent he’ll have to fix before his buyer takes over the Manor. The door whines pathetically as it starts to close, but it’s fucking Potter, so he doesn’t allow it to whinge for more than a millisecond before he’s thrusting his open-palmed hand backward and hurling it shut with magic. He’s not at the Cock and Cum club, no, but Draco thinks he might very well have unknowingly wandered into one of those Muggle sitcoms with staged laughter where unfortunate, tragically comedic coincidences are a regular occurrence. Manifesting what little Draco in the televisor picture box would do, he collapses backward against the ottoman, arms sprawled out above him. Cue the laugh track.

“What are you —?” Potter starts, voice scratchy with ire and ever the wordsmith. Draco chuckles to himself just because. It’s not directed at him, though, because when he props himself up on his elbows, Potter’s storming toward Blaise. “What the fuck is this? Do you have any idea how fucking selfish you are? Do you ever think of — of what anyone else might want? Anyone else other than you? I hate to break it to you, but the world doesn’t fucking revolve around Blaise Zabini.” Potter is a few inches shorter than Blaise, but they’re built about the same, and Draco would be lying if he said the glacial edge to Potter’s words didn’t wipe the sardonic smile right off his face and slice menacingly into his gut. Draco sits up. He looks expectantly at Blaise, feeling a bit like the wind’s been knocked out of him.

“Easy, Potter,” Blaise says gruffly, nudging him back by the shoulder. “No need to get territorial.” There’s a hint of a smile at the corner of his lips, but it’s gone once he turns his eyes toward Draco. “Stay out of this,” he speaks, still to Potter.

“It’s not any of my business, but you’re a complete arsehole,” Potter says. Blaise’s eyes flare with furor.

“Damn right it’s none of your business,” Draco finally pipes up, finding his voice under his brain’s messy pile of ‘why the hell is Potter bothering?’ and ‘what the hell does he know?’ “If you’re trying to _save_ me — and please don’t make me laugh. You’re a self-fulfilling prophecy, you and your fucking complex, because if that’s what you’re trying to do, you’re making an —“

Potter’s hands go to his hair, which Draco knew there was no hope for. Some of it’s getting in the way of his blazing eyes and the rest is standing at a height of at least two inches from his scalp. “Are you blind, Malfoy? Don’t you see what he’s doing to you?”

Draco fishmouths, feeling small but angry with all of his hair standing on end, like he’s six years younger and sitting at the mile-long mahogany table in the Manor's dining hall, and his father’s just uttered a few off-beat words in the Dark Lord’s icy presence and suddenly all of the Malfoys’ necks are on the line.

“Let’s not abuse our knowledge, Potter,” Blaise says into the silence. Draco can’t speak their language, looks between their self-restrained bodies, wound up with combative energy, and then Blaise’s back hits the closest wall as if launched by an invisible cannon, his head banging painfully against it. He’s a solid man, so it doesn’t outwardly damage him, but he does wince. Potter hasn’t moved, but his fist is clenched at his side. Blaise pants, righting himself. “Fuck,” he hisses, and Draco can only imagine what he’d have done to Potter had they all not been tongue-tied at the striking moan that followed, echoing against the high ceilings.

The disturbance is distinctly effeminate, and the three of them exchange wary glances. Draco’s eyes ghost over the row of clean sinks, ivory against the rose-printed wallpaper, to the doors on the toilet stalls. He rises to his feet, tries to roll some of the tension out of his neck, but Clemence’s saliva feels like hardened glue against his skin. Draco’s eyes hone in on a detail of which he wishes, in hindsight, that he hadn’t taken note; a pair of shorts of black brocade, tossed carelessly to the floor, just visible beneath the door of the handicapped stall. He nearly bites his own tongue off.

“Pansy,” he whispers at first, and then his legs carry him to the door. “ _Pansy!_ ” he bellows, and his fist can only bang once on the door before he feels the warm surge of what is, without a doubt, Potter’s magic, sailing through Draco’s sternum and into the door to unlatch the lock.

Draco braces himself as the door opens obediently for Potter. It’s the ideal time to ponder what the name of his Muggle sitcom would be. _‘Draco Malfoy Could Possess The Inner Eye And He’d Still Never Know What The Fuck Was Going On’_ is a rough draft, he decides. He feels the shudder of Blaise’s breath against the back of his neck. Potter’s close, too. He can just feel it.

They all get a load of the freckliest arse Draco has ever laid eyes on, white boxers shucked down to the thighs with what Draco thinks is ‘RBW’ stitched clumsily in orange onto the waistband. There’s a black stiletto on the floor, but the other remains intact on Pansy’s foot, her calf muscles still momentarily spread against Weasley’s lower back until she lowers her feet to the floor and they go thin again, black nails dallying to drag her lacy thong back into place. Her hair is mussed, and Weasley has sweat patches on his back and armpits, visible through his shirt. He’s thrown his jacket dangerously close to the toilet, and he has to take a step back to let Pansy extricate herself from the wall. And from his dick. Salazar’s grave, he’s seen Weasley’s package.

“I — I think I might honk,” Potter mumbles.

“Seconded,” Draco says, but mainly because of Weasley’s full moon arse. His spine is itching. It’s possible he’s turning into a werewolf at the sight of it. Another silence follows, heavy with breathing as Pansy and Weasley dress themselves, the latter making quicker work of it than the former. Draco lifts her shorts from the floor, and she smiles nonchalantly at him as she snatches them from his fingers.

“Thanks, love,” she says unabashedly.

“Ron, what the hell? Are you _mad_?” Potter rasps, stepping out of the way when Pansy shoulders past him to go sit on the ottoman and slip back into her heels. Weasley looks more ill by the second, his face an unpleasant shade of chartreuse. He’s officially ruined the color for Draco, who had been considering doing the walls in his room at Potter’s in that shade.

“Yeah,” Weasley answers emptily, his belt still undone as he tugs wearily on the sweat-slick fringe that hangs over his eyes. “Yeah. Yeah. Think I am.” He swallows audibly and then looks at Potter again. “Fuck, Harry, I _am_. What’ve I done?” he whimpers. Draco leans into the doorframe of the cubicle, his palm covering his mouth. He’s admittedly rendered speechless. Draco chances a glance at Blaise, who touches the small of Draco’s back in solidarity but squints at Pansy across the room.

“Put a sock in it, Weasley. Don’t act like you didn’t like it even better the second round,” Pansy says, cheeks puffing out as she blows her hair from her face and click-clicks on her stilettos to the sinks to wash her hands. Draco can tell her apparent ease is put on, even if it’s awfully convincing to the naked eye. There is a hint of complacency in her swagger, though, that is undeniably _Pansy_. He’s tempted to congratulate her for following through, but he’s developed a certain fondness for Granger, whom he thinks of all wizards and witches is the least deserving of infidelity. She’s deliberately avoiding Draco’s watchful eyes, so he has a feeling she’s conscious of her faults.

“I mean — of _course_ I did. But that was — that wasn’t right. I shouldn’t’ve — you shouldn’t’ve tried, tried that with — oh, Merlin, I’m going to die,” Weasley snivels hoarsely. Potter, whose lips are folded into a thin line, merely nods at this lamentation.

“When did my wedding turn into a dramatic and depraved episode of _WWN_ ’s _Miss Madeleine Malevolent’s Magical Academy for Naughty Witches and Wizards_?” Blaise inquires of no one in particular, his voice breathless as if his lungs have yet to recover from Potter’s blow. Nobody responds. Draco fumbles his wand out of his sleeve and casts a lazy cleaning spell for the sake of the floor and wall against which Pansy and Weasley had gone at it. Twice. Pansy clears her throat, her hair in place and her makeup unsmudged.

“Enjoy your book club meeting, ladies,” she says, looking mainly at Draco before heading toward the door. “I’m thinking your speech will be soon, Draco. Best not miss it. The groom ought to be present, too, I suppose. See you all out there, yeah?” She smiles, all rosebud lips, and as she’s exiting, the door swings open to allow Clemence Creasey inside, who politely holds it open for Pansy without question and shuffles toward the urinals. He unzips, releases an exaggerated sigh of relief as a steady stream of piss hits the urinal, and the four of them, Potter, Weasley, Blaise, and Draco, stand in uncomfortable silence until Clemence shakes off and tucks himself back into his white trousers. Draco, seeking anything to grasp onto that will offer him some sort of sanity and stability in that toilet, something to hold onto that won’t collapse under him or knock him unconscious like the atomic vibrations of tension in the air threaten to, practically smiles in relief when Clemence heads toward the sinks to wash his hands. Before he makes it there, though, he startles theatrically at what indeed resembles a book club meeting by the handicapped cubicle.

“Lads!” he shouts, gauche with his American accent, and holds his arms out to both sides. “What’re you all trapped in the loo for? It’s poppin’ out there!” He takes a step closer. “Are we doing drugs? I want in.” Draco rubs at his temples. It’s possible the tinnitus he’s experiencing is merely an alert from the mechanism or organ in Weasley’s body beside him that’s warningly counting down to the moment he’ll self-destruct. When they fail to respond and Blaise mutters incoherently under his breath as he strides out, Clemence chuckles and drops his arms to his sides with a clap of open palms against thighs. He pokes the side of his own neck, eyebrows piquing at Draco. “Blondie, you’ve got a little…” His voice trails off into an innocent smirk, and Draco instinctively mirrors his movement, blunt nails sinking into the patch of skin where he can still feel the impressions of Creasey’s teeth. Potter snorts and stalks from the bathroom, leaving Draco with the heathen and the American clown.


	13. Chapter 13

“You can’t tell her.”

Harry stares, arms folded tightly over his chest, the Muggle suit creasing at his elbows. “Ron, you — she _always_ knows when I’m hiding something.”

Ron swallows visibly, his fingers grappling against the trunk of the tree behind him, the one that Harry had cornered him against once he’d finally set foot out of the toilet. The bark flakes off, blackens the white tips of his fingernails. “I’ll tell her,” he promises, brows creasing with anguish. “ _I_ need to tell her. Not you. Not — Merlin’s bollocks — not Zabini, not fucking _Malfoy_. Me.” He exhales deeply, having withered down to eye level with Harry by sinking against the tree an inch a minute. “Just not now. Please, Harry? I don’t wanna cause a scene.”

The corner of Harry’s jaw pulses with tension. He can’t say that’s an unreasonable request, but he’d venture to say that the toilet situation could already be defined as ‘a scene.’ He’s silent, pacing to and fro in front of Ron, back and forth past the tree in the dimly lit corner of the ballroom. Then he stops, hands raking through his hair. “Why did you — _how?_ How could you be so fucking stupid?”

Ron looks more ill by the second, his chewed-on lips red against his pale face. “Must’ve... had too much to drink. Or...” he trails off, eyes moving between Harry and the marble floor. “She was so up for it. Like you wouldn’t believe, Harry. She acted all devil-may-care ‘bout it after, but she was insistent. Nobody’s wanted me like that since — well, since Hermione, _only_ Hermione, ever, but not, not recently —“

Harry laughs sharply. When a few strands of his hair fall into his eyes, he knows he’s made about as much of a mess of it as one could’ve. There’s an ache in his chest, like pathways to his heart are being tugged at in all directions — by Malfoy, by Zabini. Ron and Hermione. “That’s bullshit. And that doesn’t even begin to answer my question.” He feels something hard jab into his elbow, and when he turns, it’s the cold edge of a levitating tray of bubbling, golden champagne flutes. He’s always had a flair for the dramatic, and because he’d rather leave Ron with a look of terror than the sickening self-pity he’s sporting, he slashes out at the glasses with his arm, and a cascade of shattering glass and spilled liquid lurches off the tray, plummeting toward the floor only to turn to mist and evaporate just before making contact. The sound is absorbed by the trees around them. It ruins the effect slightly. Damn Malfoy for thinking of everything.

The sound of a throat being cleared echoes through the enchanted forest, and Harry peers over his shoulder in the direction of the clustered tables, buffet now laden with dessert. Before Ron can say anything more, he stalks off, weaving between house-elves and pink toadstools and tipsy bridesmaids stumbling back to their seats. He stands at the edge of the clearing. It’s Malfoy who’s got his wand pointed at his throat, standing at Zabini’s table with one palm against the tablecloth. Paloma is blissfully oblivious, while the ghost of a past horror still paints Zabini’s face as he eyes Parkinson a few chairs down. She’s watching Malfoy, unbothered.

“Ah, hello. Thank you for tuning in.” While still shaky if one knows where to look, Malfoy’s voice comes out impressively silky, his smile cordial. “Yes, yes, I know this is the moment of the night you’ve all been waiting for — yes, even you, cousin Pernilla, though you’ve imbibed the mead enough for half of us. This is the moment that I make this utterly bizarre tradition of celebrating two people’s eternal union to one another worthwhile for every single one of you by shitting on Blaise Zabini. The biggest dump you’ve ever seen, I’d say.”

Harry bites his lower lip to hold back a smile. Zabini’s arm is around Paloma, and all seems to have returned to normal. It’s not to say that Harry doesn’t want to magic his face into an anvil so he falls over and onto it, but he’s got his paws off Malfoy, as if Ron and Pansy had struck him back to reality. There’s a loud whoop, and all eyes turn to Malfoy’s right, past Pansy, where Clem’s thrusted his glass into the air in a toast. Something churns in Harry’s gut; despite the secret trauma they’ve all incurred in the past half-hour, he hasn’t forgotten Malfoy in Clem’s arms, just a few feet away from him on the dance floor. Danica had been blushingly surprised when her arse had brushed his front, and all Harry could do was give her a pained smile, watch through the swooping curls of her hair as Malfoy’s tongue slid into Creasey’s mouth, gray eyes lidded but definitely, _definitely_ seeing Harry.

Malfoy blinks slowly at the interruption. Harry watches him exhale patiently. “Thank you for that, Clemence. Anyhow, it all began the day Blaise was born.” He chuckles, placing his hand on Zabini’s shoulder as the latter rolls his eyes at the round of chuckles. “That very fact, that he was born, has touched the lives of every person in this room in innumerable ways. For one, Paloma would probably be wedded to a young, handsome, progressive Minister for Magic — because in a world without Blaise, we would certainly have one of those — or perhaps to a war hero, such as the noble Neville Longbottom, whose course of puberty Blaise has always envied.” Malfoy licks his lips, smiles cat-like. “Our dear Pansy Parkinson would be an old maid, as Severus Snape — may he roll over uncomfortably in his grave at this thought — would never have had the privilege of walking in on Blaise and Pansy having the worst shag-slash-loss-of-virginity of their lives in the Potions supply closet.” Titters echo, and Pansy wrinkles her nose and shrugs, as if conceding to the fact. Paloma gives Blaise a scolding look that’s really anything but, and they kiss one another sweetly. Malfoy pauses for a moment and glances in Harry’s direction as he proceeds to move from the very back of the crowd to return to his table to take the empty seat between Danica and Hermione. Hermione looks him over with big, brown eyes as he sits, mouths _‘have you seen Ron?’_ at him, to which he can only shrug in response, because his eyes are flickering right back to Malfoy’s, but his brief attention is gone.

It’s strange how much Harry had always thought Malfoy to be so one-sided; volatile but weak and with his nose permanently upturned and with a vicious air about him. But he can see it, the way the feelings play across Malfoy’s face, even from a distance, and intertwine with the waves of his voice; the nostalgia, the humor, the wistfulness. The sadness. Malfoy clears his throat and chuckles. “I, myself, can attest also to the fact that Blaise is a complete arsehole who’s fucked up my life more than anyone knows.” Harry nearly chokes on his glass of water, because a roar of laughter surges through the group of rowdy, drunken guests, but he knows that out of all of them, it’s most likely just him, Pansy, Blaise, Paloma, and, of course, Malfoy, who know the true gravity of those words. Blaise’s fingers clutch Paloma’s shoulder apprehensively as he loops his arm around her. Harry can see Pansy’s brows pinch together from afar. But Malfoy just licks his lips and plows on. “Despite being stellar at Potions back in school, I’ve had my fair share of pustule breakouts thanks to Blaise’s impeccable measuring skills and generous attention span. I’ve fallen victim to several pranks of the Weasley-twins caliber in the Slytherin dormitory, one of which involved waking up fully-clothed in a charmed sex swing in the showers, and that’s just on the harmless end. It’s clear as crystal that this man needs a better half, and who better than Paloma to save us all from him.” Harry sinks down slightly in his chair, fingers knotting together between his legs. “For a while, I had to try to find my way through a world that no longer made sense — that hadn’t made sense for a _while_ — as I’m sure many of you know. That time was pretty damn shitty for everyone, for some more than others, and given the circumstances, it could’ve been much worse for me. But Blaise was there, he was always there, there every step of the way with me as best he fucking could be. And I never once asked, I _never_ did, how shitty it was for him. Egocentric, you may think. And you’d be damn right.” Malfoy smiles, self-deprecating. “And as Blaise was helping me to find myself again — or for the first time, really — I know in my heart of hearts that while I wasn’t there for him, while I wasn’t helping to do the same for him, Paloma was. And she’s been there ever since. And I know that he did the same for her, too, like he did for me.” Harry holds his breath and watches the fading light peeking through the treetop canopy glint off tears trailing down Paloma’s cheek as she presses her face into Zabini’s neck. Zabini is inscrutable, his cheek against Paloma’s forehead, fingers dancing comfortingly up and down her arm, eyes unfocused on the hovering clarinet above the center of their table. Malfoy’s hand trembles a bit, whether from holding his wand to his neck for so long, or for reasons about which Harry doesn’t want to think. Malfoy’s voice had cracked off on a dry note, and it’s about a full thirty seconds before he speaks again. Malfoy chuckles quietly, a hollow sort of noise that settles into the gaps between Harry’s ribs and bites down on him. “And, well. That’s just disgustingly, sickly sweet, isn’t it?” He tilts his head to the side as he turns toward Blaise and Paloma, reaching for his own, albeit empty, glass. “To Blaise and Paloma Zabini.” His glass refills before everyone’s eyes, and the crowd toasts wordlessly. Harry finds himself doing so, too. “May Paloma experience the magic of the sex swing.” He finishes with a flourish of his wand and a smirk before he settles into his seat. Harry thinks it’s just a dramatic touch, until he feels a warm wind brush against his neck, and from the faraway, conjured golden sky, a shower of flower petals floats slowly down over them all. As Paloma and Blaise share a grin and another kiss, a chorus of _oohs_ and _ahhs_ , clinking glasses, and the bawling of Mrs. Bexley refracts strangely against the flurry of petals. Danica sneezes by his side, and Hermione holds her palm to her chest warmly, as a few petals get caught in her updo and tickle her eyelashes. They cover everyone and everything like snow, and Harry can barely see Malfoy across the room, but he thinks he spots Parkinson leaning in his direction.

“I’m going to be finding these in all kinds of places tomorrow morning,” Hermione chuckles, reaching into the sweetheart neckline of her dress to pluck a few petals out. Her eyes go to Ron’s chair, covered in a fresh coat of flower petals, which are gradually dying down in density as the balmy breeze guides them. She notices that Harry notices, and though he tries to look away stealthily, concern creases her face. “Do you think it was the chocolate cake? I told him not to have more, that I could taste the prunes in it, but he wouldn’t listen. You know how he’s always gorging himself.”

Harry tugs at his collar absently with his finger. Malfoy had really tied the knot of his tie to last. “Must’ve been.”

Across the room, Paloma smushes a handful of white icing from their wedding cake onto Blaise’s dark skin, painting streaks across it while the Bexley parents look on fondly. Luna, who’s engaging in polite conversation with the ever-present Clem, picks up a flower petal from the table and sticks it decoratively to the icing on Zabini’s cheek. Between him and Pansy, though, whose compact mirror is in the air as she checks on her lip color, Malfoy is gone.

“Draco’s speech was lovely, don’t you think?” Hermione asks. Harry coughs a bit and nods vaguely. He can’t help but think it was all rather insensate and withdrawn, the sad truth embellished with crude stories, all delivered with an unwavering smile. But in someone’s eyes, someone who hasn’t seen what Harry’s seen, it did finish with a fair amount of romantic gusto.

Danica sets down a plate of gold-dusted macarons in front of him, petals still littering her hair despite her swift trip to the desserts table. “Look at these things. They’re _sparkling_.” She picks one up, offers it to Harry’s lips, and the way her white teeth dig into her lower lip suggests the action is a bit less than innocent. “Think I’ll need Malfoy to do my wedding… if it ever happens.”

Harry cringes inwardly and takes a bite of the offered, powdery macaron to give himself a chance to chew and continue his inner monologue. He really wishes it’d taste terrible, but naturally, it’s creamy and not overly sweet. Where did Malfoy go? Danica’s his date — should he feel guilty about thinking about Malfoy instead? He’d raged at Ron over fucking Parkinson — _Merlin, he’ll never live that down_ — but is he just as much of a piece of shit for wanting Malfoy and touching Malfoy while he’s sort-of-with-kind-of-not-with Danica? And _where is Malfoy?_

“Er — loo,” he mutters distractedly, and Danica frowns at him, lowering the half-eaten macaron and examining it suspiciously.

“Did you have the chocolate cake, too?” Hermione asks hopefully, as if it would be a comfort to her, but all Harry can manage is a stilted smile as pushes in his chair and ventures amidst the trees.

Auror duties, of course. It’s his duty to keep an eye on Malfoy. If he’d done his duty well, he wouldn’t have allowed Malfoy to build a whole forest in which to hide in the first place, but once upon a time, prior to his trip to Greece, Harry Potter had been a good Auror, a dependable one, in line for the deputy Head role. That’d been prior to his relegation to a very blond and unnervingly difficult assignment.

A low-hanging branch thwacks him across the arm, and Harry winces, grabbing at his bicep. He must be an unfortunate sight, because a second one hits him in the knee, but he doesn’t think branches grow that low, nor do they make that sort of noise. Harry merely stumbles that time, but whips around to see Iggy picking himself up from the floor and dusting off his satin pillowcase with Malfoy-like dignity.

“Most sincerest apologies, Harry Potter, sir,” he says with a smile. Harry blinks, relieved that Iggy’s first instinct at a blunder with Harry Potter isn’t to iron his hands.

“No problem, Iggy. Wasn’t looking where I was going. Splendid wedd — have you seen Malfoy?” he blurts, still cradling his own arm.

Iggy straightens his posture, his smile only widening on his crinkly, little face, round eyes glimmering. “Young Master has left. Iggy is in charge for the rest of the night,” he crows with pride. “’My domain is your domain now, Iggy,’ as Young Master said.”

Harry frowns, only barely registering what a downpour he must be on Iggy’s personal parade. “He left? Where did he go?”

Iggy laughs in a soft, screechy way, oddly reminiscent of Dobby. “To Harry Potter’s home, of course, Harry Potter, sir!”

Harry sucks in a breath slowly, then releases it, nodding absently. “If anyone asks about me, Iggy, tell them it was the chocolate prune cake,” he states, and then Apparates on the spot.

The door to Grimmauld Place is open when he stumbles onto the front step. Harry stares at it tentatively, looks around and at the street, but it’s dark and perfectly silent but for the faint sound of crickets. He steps inside. “Malfoy?” he calls out, looking instinctively to the stairs, but the sound that follows comes from Harry’s living room. Malfoy, free of his blue jacket, wears just his white waistcoat and shirt from the waist up. He’s unfairly gorgeous. He’s also holding a glass from Harry’s own store, swirling something amber in it, most likely also from Harry’s own store.

“Figured you’d show up any moment now, Potter. Can’t go anywhere tonight without someone breathing down my neck,” he mutters, then takes a sip of what’s in his glass.

Harry’s lip curls a bit, but he channels his tension into his balled-up hands. “Why did you leave?”

Malfoy smirks dryly against the rim of his glass. “My best friend shagged a Weasley. I just gave my other best friend away to that blonde bint. That’s how my evening is going.”

Harry doesn’t take his eyes off Malfoy, draws the door shut behind him with a flex of his fingers. _But you love Paloma, Draco_ , Pansy might say, had she been there. He clears his throat, rolls his shoulders absently. “I could — I could see why,” he mutters. He should be at the wedding. With his date. With Hermione, a bundle of nerves already without the knowledge of her partner’s infidelity. With Ron, who’s a massive fucking wanker, but still means the most to him on this Earth. He feels inadequate under Malfoy’s gaze, patronized.

“Why what, Potter?” Malfoy drains the glass, pale eyebrows arching. He looks around, presumably for a surface to place it on, and has to take a few steps out of the doorway to set it onto the antique table in the foyer.

“Why you left the wedding.”

“Right.” Malfoy’s fingertip traces the rim of the glass, and then he turns it deftly in a circle. Harry watches. “And then you came to look for me.”

“I’m supposed to,” Harry defends.

Malfoy lifts his hand from the glass and moves toward him, his hand coming to rest on his hip as he seems to assess Harry. He shakes his head slowly, eyes narrowed. “Is that why you followed Blaise and I at the wedding?”

Harry glances furtively at Malfoy’s lips, which are twisted into a frown now. Harry doesn’t get a chance to reply.

“Blaise and I aren’t your business, Potter. _Your_ business, what you’re allowed to stick your nose in, is anything concerning my father, my mother, and I. And nothing else. I highly doubt the Head Auror assigned you to weasel your way into my personal life.” Malfoy’s eyes flicker up and down Harry’s face. Oddly enough, his words are calm, and smell like the firewhisky Ogden’s sent Harry a massive box of for Christmas. It doesn’t mean Harry’s at ease, though. He moves his foot back half an inch and it bumps against the door behind him.

“Didn’t mean to overstep,” he says tightly, eyes trained on Malfoy’s.

Malfoy doesn’t move for a moment, but when he does, his lips part and he absently licks his lower one slick. “Oh, but you did.” And then he’s sinking to his knees in front of Harry, those long fingers of his working at Harry’s belt.

Harry’s pupils blow and he’s quite sure his heart convulses the same way his stomach does as he braces himself against the front door and peers down at Malfoy. Malfoy, who uses magic for certain tasks, like stirring his coffee and preserving flowers in a garden, but not to pry open Harry’s belt, drag it out of the loops and toss it unceremoniously onto the carpet beneath his knees, unbutton and unzip his trousers. His hands have a mind of their own, because Malfoy meets Harry’s gaze in the yellowy light from the antique sconce on the wall, eyes gunmetal gray as one hand presses upward underneath Harry’s shirt, dragging against the trail of hair on his lower belly, and the other one works into his underwear, letting his half-hard cock free so he can close his lips around the head.

Harry’s got to be dreaming. He has to be. They must’ve truly done drugs in the toilet with Clem Creasey — it must be a fever dream. Ron hasn’t fucked Pansy. Draco Malfoy isn’t on his knees with Harry’s dick in his mouth, that malevolent look in his eye, doing it all of his own fucking accord. But the wood grain of the door feels awfully real under his uneven nails, and he feels his vocal chords vibrate as he breathes out shakily and mutters, “ _Fuck_.”

Malfoy’s lips pop off wetly and he _laughs_ , the bastard laughs, and there’s a string of spit connecting Malfoy’s mouth to his dick and he’s not sure if it’s fucked up that he wants to lick it away himself. “Calm down, Potter,” he breathes superciliously, but grips Harry’s cock by the base, his thumb running up and down achingly slowly along the vein on the underside of Harry’s dick. “Else risk one thinking you’re… _pure_.” Malfoy drags the flat of his tongue over Harry’s tip, and, hardly in control of his extremities any longer, Harry’s head falls against the door with a thud, his heaving chest blocking his view every time he inhales too hard or too fast. Tempted, so tempted to see Malfoy’s hair fall across his eyes like it had that morning in Paris when he’d been without his hair potions, he tries to recall some of his balance and weaves his fingers into Malfoy’s white-blond hair as he’s taking Harry further into his mouth. It must be the potion, something about it’s formulation, that causes it to relax on contact, because Malfoy’s tresses feel silky slipping between his own knobby fingers as Malfoy sucks him, saliva dripping from the corners of his lips, noisy, wet, fucking perfect. He moves his hand to dig his nails hard into Harry’s hip, cheeks hollowing starkly against the poor light as his throat does, too, and Harry hisses through his teeth as he feels himself hit the back of Malfoy’s throat, feels the pert tip of his long nose press into the dark, curly hair at the base of his cock.

And then he pulls off, wipes the back of his mouth with the cuff of his white shirt, and rises impossibly smoothly backward onto his feet. Harry’s dick is still out, wet from Malfoy’s mouth and getting colder by the minute, yet he’s finding it rather hard to move a muscle as Malfoy stares at him. Malfoy’s eyebrows twitch as he smiles at Harry appraisingly, slips his hands into his pockets, and turns to saunter casually toward the stairs, up which he leaps with too much grace.

Harry, bewildered, tucks himself back in but doesn’t zip up, and thanks to Malfoy’s last-minute tailoring, the trousers don’t fall right off and pool at his ankles like he’s a little kid walking out of the toilet in search of his mum. No. That’s not at all what’s happening. “Malfoy,” he grits, the steps creaking menacingly under his heavy shoes as he follows. Malfoy barely makes a sound as he moves.

On the second floor, he finds Malfoy leaning against the wall, arms folded over his chest. It’s dark, but Harry doesn’t bother to flood them with harsh light. “What the hell was that?” he mutters. When Malfoy crosses his legs at the ankles and tilts his head to the side, his cock jerks involuntarily.

Malfoy pouts theatrically. “Was it really that bad? I suppose I’ve only had Blaise to ever critique me, but he’s never complained.”

“No, it wasn’t — fuck, that’s not what I meant —“

“I didn’t finish you off,” Malfoy points out, simpering. “Is that why little Potter’s so cross? He’s denied an orgasm for once in his life? I bet out of all your birds, ever, you’ve only made a handful of them come.”

Harry squints. He prides himself on being a generous lover. He takes a few steps closer to Malfoy. “That’s — completely untrue. And you’re —“

“I’m an exception,” Malfoy finishes for him, smile devilish. That’s not what Harry would’ve said, but. “I’m also not a lady. But you did get me to climax, Potter.” Malfoy looks at his nails mindlessly. “This is true. And now, after all this time, after weeks of seeing you look at me the way you do, pining after me, teasing me about Blaise for no reason other than the fact that you’re jealous of him, because I only have — had eyes for him, you think I’m going to reciprocate.”

Harry snorts, feeling the back of his neck flush at being called out but grimacing defiantly. He’s never exactly been discreet. He doesn’t even know if he’s tried, except for those few hours that Malfoy demanded he keep off the alcohol. “I didn’t think that. I didn’t expect anything from you ’til you — you fucking got on your knees!” he exclaims.

Malfoy claps his hands together, his Adam’s apple visible as his neck arches backwards with a laugh. “Merlin, Potter, you should’ve seen your face. I’ll —“ He cuts himself off, but his countenance remains intact. Harry would rather die again than not hear him finish that sentence.

“You’ll what?” he murmurs, shirt sticking to his back with cooling sweat as he traipses closer, arms hanging limp at his sides. His raging hard-on is a tad less raging, but it’s nothing that a brief touch wouldn’t fix. Hell, he thinks that if Malfoy even looked at him a certain way, it’d do it for him.

Malfoy’s smirk softens marginally, and it makes Harry lightheaded. He bites his lip, considers Harry for a moment, doing all sorts of sweet things with his sweet face, like releasing his bottom lip and letting it go plump again, his nose twitching imperceptibly before he opens his mouth to respond. “Think I’ll remember it for a while,” he mutters.

Harry doesn’t think he needs to preface it when he kisses Malfoy. They collide bodily, and Malfoy makes a whiny noise of protest when he’s trapped against the wall, but when he pushes, he’s pushing away from the wall and onto Harry, arms wrapping around his neck. Malfoy tastes like whisky and warmth and smells like the trees in the enchanted forest, and because it’s closest, Harry shoves open the door to Malfoy’s bedroom, dragging him by the waist. Malfoy stumbles but follows, and it’s difficult to keep their lips together when they’re both stumbling over the other, so instead Malfoy breaths hotly and wetly against Harry’s cheek, laughing in that sharp, lovely way as he clings to him the way he might cling to Blaise Zabini, had he the opportunity. When Harry stops cold two steps into the room, Malfoy noses into his shoulder, mouthing at the skin just above the collar of Harry’s shirt as his nimble fingers work at Harry’s tie. Harry just stares past his shoulder, eyes wide.

“What did you do?” he breathes. It feels unbelievably good, he realizes, to hold Malfoy’s thin, solid frame like he is, but that’s just a momentary distraction. If Harry’s memory serves, the last he’d seen of the untouched guest room had been its faded, blue walls, the single bed and nightstand. The furniture is there, but it’s been finished with a black, glossy coating, and the wallpaper depicts a charming, red baroque print, alive with little birds flitting from leaf to leaf. There’s a fucking fireplace, and little rugs layered everywhere, and an ornate, silver mirror.

“You can’t be serious right now, Potter,” Malfoy mutters, whipping Harry’s tie to the floor. Harry briefly catches the distasteful look he gives him, though his fingertips are impatiently unbuttoning down the length of Harry’s chest. “There were cobwebs. There wasn’t even a chair to sit in!”

“So you gave it an extreme makeover?” Harry frowns at an overstuffed black leather chair.

“Yes.” Malfoy pinches his bare nipple, glares. Harry jumps a bit, realizes his jacket and shirt are on the floor and Malfoy’s got his hands on his body while still offensively fully-dressed. “Are you trying to turn me off?”

Harry blinks and he really can’t help it when he chuckles breathily. “No! No. It looks nice. I like it. Crown molding. Makes me hot under the collar,” he tries to reason, and his hands are still uselessly glued to his sides. At this point, Malfoy clearly tries to suppress a smile, but he takes a step back from Harry.

“Boner killer,” he mutters. “The crown molding was already here. The Blacks had a modicum of taste.” When he makes to leave — Harry doesn’t really think he would, to be honest, but he goes for it anyway — Harry magicks the door shut with an obnoxious slam. Malfoy turns an expectant gaze on him, all pointy elbows and flashing, dark eyes and slender-fingered hands on slim hips. His eyes narrow. “Sorry, Potter. You had one chance. You ruined it. It’s gone. Forever. Just like that. Why am I even sorry? I’m not. It’s just gone.”

Harry bites back smile, and he tries his very best to keep a casual front under Malfoy’s watchful eyes, even if he’s shirtless and his trousers are unzipped. He trains his eyes on Malfoy’s shirt and his waistcoat, the little, pearly buttons, and, curling his fingers slowly, one by one, into the palm of his hand, they come gently undone. Malfoy makes a little noise in the back of his throat that he tries to cover with a cough, but Harry thinks he knows he’s failed miserably because a gorgeous, peachy color spreads across his cheeks. Malfoy pinches his own lower lip between his fingers as his eyes dart up to Harry.

“You’re trying to seduce me with magic. Very clever,” he murmurs, and Harry practically sighs in relief when Malfoy rather sensually shrugs out of his shirt, taking the few steps forward that he’d moved back. Harry’s taken back to Paris, to Malfoy sprawled out on the bed for him. He’s never seen his bare chest, he’s just realized. It’s rapture.

“Is it working?” he asks a little hoarsely.

Malfoy’s lips quirk up at the corners, and he lays his palms appreciatively on Harry’s biceps, ghosting over the muscle there. “Feel for yourself, why don’t you?” He shoves Harry by the shoulders so he collides with the side of the bed, and Harry’s so hot, so hot all over, feeling his own fringe tickle his nose as he grasps onto the sheets, as Malfoy presses himself all along him, and yes, he thinks it’s working. Malfoy chuckles faintly and it’s muffled into his mouth when Harry leans over to catch his lips abruptly. He’s learned that Malfoy likes kissing. Malfoy’s really good at kissing. And who would he be, to not give him what he wants?

Harry’s fingers brush over Malfoy’s tight waist as Malfoy sucks slowly on his tongue, and it’s nice, and all, but the look of shock is even better when Harry lifts Malfoy and dumps him onto the bed. He settles in rather nicely, though, and toes his shoes off onto the floor before shuffling back and settling against the too-many pillows he’s managed to acquire.

“This is an inordinate amount of pillows,” comments Harry, leaving his own shoes behind as he climbs onto the bed.

Malfoy peers at him from beneath his eyelashes as he parts his legs, slim and long and still clad in blue. “They’re cushions,” he mumbles, almost sounding... distracted? Harry smirks helplessly, sitting on his knees between Malfoy’s legs. _You’re hot, you’re so fit_ , that’s what everyone always says. But Malfoy… Malfoy would never. He’s thinking something along those lines for sure, but how would he phrase it? But then he shakes out of it. “ _Gods_ , Potter, would you get on with it?”

Harry’s waited too long, longer than he’s even known he’d wanted this, this, _it_ , whatever _it_ is, so he doesn’t hesitate to lean over Malfoy, his hands sinking into the mattress at both sides of his waist, peering fleetingly into his eyes before he drops a kiss to his pale shoulder. “Tell me what you’re thinking right now,” he murmurs into Malfoy’s skin.

Malfoy sighs a little at the press of Harry’s lips, his fingers twining deliciously into the back of Harry’s hair so he gets a glimpse of his scarred inner arm, skin still emblazoned with the Mark. He chuckles, so faint Harry’s not sure if he imagined it, and Harry feels the nudge of his nose against his own temple. “ _No_.”

Harry drops his hips just so, so they can feel each other, and Malfoy’s sprawled legs rise a bit to hold him in place with his inner thighs. Breathing him in, Harry’s lips move slowly up the side of his neck, to the underside of his jaw, and hell, yes, he’s going to take his time, because Malfoy could decide at any moment that it’s time to start regretting everything he’s ever done with Harry, so he’s going to fucking enjoy it. “Malfoy, tell me,” he urges in a mutter, and it doesn’t take much.

“You should fuck my mouth,” says Malfoy against his hair. Harry’s eyebrows rise, and he doesn’t get a chance to even look at him before Malfoy exhales deeply. “I… I _want_ you to fuck my mouth.”

Then Harry looks at him, not trying very hard to withhold his grin. Malfoy doesn’t meet his eyes for a moment, and they wander like they’re tracking a wallpaper bird across the room, but when he does, his embarrassed gaze goes squinty and sarcastic and he shoves Harry back by the middle of his chest, propping himself up on his elbows so he can drag Harry’s trousers down over his arse. “Shut up, Potter.” He goes a little slower, as if he’s teasing himself, as he does the same to Harry’s boxers. “You — objectively, you have a nice cock.” Harry watches the lean muscles in Malfoy’s stomach flex as he holds himself up. Harry’s dick, pink and leaning, bobs a bit as Malfoy frees it, and Harry smirks, nods for him to continue. Malfoy notices this from the corners of his eyes, but he lays back, and now it’s his turn to embarrass Harry, because he’s buoyed by pillows, arms above his head, fingertips brushing the loose hair from his forehead. “And I — objectively — would… like it, I’m led to believe, if you… y’know.”

Harry snorts. “You’re ‘ _led to believe_ —‘?”

“Fuck’s sake,” Malfoy interrupts, and when did his hands get on Harry’s legs? “I don’t know why I was expecting you to be less annoying in bed.” He drags him closer with hands on his, _fuck_ , his arse. “And you’re so hairy.” Harry isn’t _led to believe_ that Malfoy minds much, though, because he peers up the length of Harry’s body at his face, shifting to get comfortable with a tight grip on Harry’s upper thighs. Harry’s breathing so loud he feels like it fills the room, and he’s certain he’ll explode if he doesn’t move, do something, so he looks hesitantly at Malfoy, crawls forward on his knees. He really can’t believe he’s being offered this, or demanded, more like.

When Harry’s close enough, Malfoy’s mouth opens for him, and it’s like a blooming fucking flower or some corny shit like that. Malfoy flashes him a ghost of a smile before Harry’s arching over him, grasping the headboard as Malfoy’s pliant tongue trails over his balls, and then those pointy fingers grab hold of him, guiding Harry’s cock into his mouth.

Harry’s eyelids fall shut with that same bliss he’d been so gobsmacked by. His back arches, hips canted downward as Malfoy sucks around him, his fingers clenching around Harry’s arse. And then he’s giving him a smack across it. Harry’s eyes blink open in a daze, because he’s not quite sure he likes that, until he realizes Malfoy is giving him a pointed look from below. Right. Malfoy rolls his eyes. He’s got to move.

“So impatient,” Harry mutters wryly, just because he knows that Malfoy can’t reply. And they’ve got a simultaneously hold over one another — Harry’s on top, his dick in the other’s mouth, so he’s clearly got some leverage, but if Malfoy keeps rolling Harry’s bollocks like that against his palm, his knees might just give out. But Harry grips the headboard, exhales deeply, and Malfoy’s throat is hot and tight and his lips stretch so gloriously around his dick. It’s difficult to rein in his control after that. He’s got no mercy, sometimes, when he gets into a mode, and once he’s comfortable that Malfoy can handle it, he’s fucking into his throat at a relentless pace. Malfoy makes little noises that vibrate around his shaft and Harry can only force himself to keep his eyes open, watch the little tears bead at the corners of Malfoy’s eyes. Those should be a warning, but when Harry deigns to hesitate, Malfoy only catches his breath for a moment and draws him back in by his bum in a way that Harry can only describe as _needy_. He’s so lucky. He’s so lucky. Harry’s so lucky. It’s like a broken record. Malfoy’s throat constricts around him, chokes briefly, but much to Harry’s surprise and intense arousal, he swallows it all when Harry comes down his throat with a rough cry. The headboard may be refinished, but Harry’s certain he’s got splinters to last.

When Harry heaves both legs onto one side of Malfoy so he can collapse onto the mattress, he sees that Malfoy’s pale face is splotchy — lips puffy and pink, eyes clear but rimmed with a light red flush, damp with tears and sweat. Harry’s not religious in the slightest, but he thinks he resembles a Weeping Mary in a hauntingly beautiful way, though anything but virgin.

Malfoy swallows dryly, his hands moving to scrub over his face, and he shifts against the superfluous cushions as his eyes flicker to Harry. Harry, who’s still holding his breath, though he half feels like he might just float away, or that he already has, that he’s dissociated from his body and now he’s looking down at the two of them, dark and light. Malfoy’s laugh comes out hoarse, and Harry’s stomach stirs with it. “That happened,” he whispers.

“Yeah.” Harry nods faintly in response. He wants Malfoy to feel it, too, he wants to touch him all over, and, flattering as they are, free him of his blue trousers —

Malfoy’s rolling over so he’s facing away from Harry, snuffling out a long breath. Harry’s hair rises all along his arms. He’s fucked up. He’s definitely fucked up for real this time, hasn’t he? He’s — “Malfoy?” he mutters tentatively.

Malfoy groans. “Kindly, just — shut up, Potter. I haven’t slept in three days.”

Harry’s eyes are fixed on the taper of Malfoy’s waist, the way his trousers pull tight across his arse as he curls up like that. Right. He hasn’t fucked up. Malfoy’s just tired. He drags his own boxers up, and then decidedly kicks out of his trousers. Malfoy doesn’t move, even when they land on his floor in a messy heap. He inches closer to him on the bed, and when there’s no flinching away as he settles his hand on Malfoy’s waist, he moves muscle by muscle, tendon by tendon, bone by bone, inch of skin on skin as he aligns himself with Malfoy from behind, his forehead against the loose, blond hair at the back of his head. “This okay?” he asks quietly. He feels Malfoy’s nod. “You okay?” he tries. It takes a moment, but Malfoy nods again. And then he keens exquisitely as Harry’s hand slips down his tight stomach, fumbles with his fly, and then presses into his briefs.

Malfoy’s breathing picks up as Harry jerks him off and he tilts his head just so Harry’s practically smothered by his hair, but he doesn’t mind, because when he’s nearly there, Malfoy strains at an uncomfortable angle to turn his head and kiss Harry on the cheek. It doesn’t matter whether it was meant for his lips or not.

And after Malfoy comes with a soft, whiny sound, he falls promptly asleep. If that means he’ll wake up in a few, short hours and hex Harry out of his bed, so be it, because he’s not going anywhere, not when the air between them is already so warm, and the skin where they’re making contact even warmer. Harry nearly wipes his palm across Malfoy’s sheets before he hesitates, rethinks, and mutters a cleaning spell under his breath. He feels his fingers tingle with the magic. It’d be a bit of a double whammy for Malfoy, wouldn’t it, waking up to Harry Potter plastered against his back and spunk smeared all over his sheets?

He’ll end up having to deal with the former either way.

***

When Harry opens his eyes, everything is blurry and blue — the drapes (Malfoy had acquired window treatments, too, he notices) are open, and the moon is a milky waxing gibbous, and its soft but cold light turns Malfoy’s crimson walls purple. There’s an ache at his temple where his glasses are stabbing into his skin, smushed against the mattress, and he feels around for them, lifting his fuzzy-brained head and plucking them from where they’re also half-lodged under Malfoy’s shoulder blade. As Harry places them onto his nose, just to get his bearings, he notices with a helpless smile that they’ve left an imprint on Malfoy’s skin, a little indentation where the wire frame has kissed his flesh. He’d hate that. Harry loves it, just a little. He’s hard again, but nonplussed. He’s napped with his hips nestled against Malfoy’s bottom, after all. Grunting softly as he flexes his toes against the cool air, his eyes inevitably trail to the warm mass beside him. Under the glow of the moon, Malfoy’s hair appears silver, and his skin pure white, covered in goosebumps. _Malfoy._ Merlin. When Harry lifts his arm, it protests as their sweat-sticky skin parts ways, but Malfoy’s still cold, so he needs to reach for the covers. He draws them over their bodies — or over Malfoy, mostly — and lays back down.

Malfoy’s breathing is even, so he considers it safe to press his nose to his shoulder, breathe in his musky smell of sleep and sex and _Harry_ , because it’s him who’s been touching his skin. The goosebumps on Malfoy’s skin don’t go away, and Harry frowns, trailing his fingertips up the subtle dip of Malfoy’s side, up the sharp cut of his hipbone to his waist to his ribs, which his fingers walk up like little stepping stones, all the way to his shoulder, where he lays his palm to his skin, squeezing the muscle beneath, willing the little bumps to go away. _Warm up_ , he pleads sleepily, tucks his knees into the backs of Malfoy’s, rubbing his shoulder enough that the skin goes a little pink at the contact. Harry kisses it, leaving his mouth there, teeth closed against air but lips open against his skin, just because he can. By Gods, he wants to worship him, every bit of him. _Of course you do, Potter_ , the little Malfoy in his head says. _Who wouldn’t? But I won’t let you. That option is far more gratifying for me_. Harry rolls his eyes at himself. _Fuck you, Malfoy_. As if to punctuate that little sentiment, he curls into Malfoy further, his mildly-uncomfortably half-hard cock making contact through several, itchy layers of clothing. Harry could Vanish them with a snap of his fingers. He could wake Malfoy up, beg him, even get on his knees as he begs to wreck him. He doesn’t. He just thinks about it for a bit. Malfoy hums in his sleep just as Harry’s rubbing at his eyes beneath his glasses, which he should really take off before he passes out again, but then there’s movement against him. A hand curls around his hip to hold him in place, long fingers sprawling ephemerally over the side of his thigh as Malfoy wriggles closer. Then they withdraw. Harry blinks, stares at the spot on Malfoy’s shoulder that he’d kissed just minutes ago.

“Fondling me in my sleep, Potter?” comes his quiet, sleep-(and blowjob-)rough voice.

Harry scoffs, but he’s propping his head up with one hand as he wraps Malfoy’s waist up in his free arm. “Not asleep, though, were you?” he retorts, a smile in his voice.

There’s a huff of breath that Harry thinks is a laugh. Harry’s not quite prepared to be faced with Malfoy himself, though, who twists so he can look into Harry’s eyes, half his weight against Harry’s steady body, amusement flickering in puffy, gray eyes, the line of his nose catching the light from the moon. “Tell me what you’re thinking right now,” he stipulates in a voice an octave lower than his natural one, a teasing glint in his eye.

Their faces are awfully close. Harry sees them first, then he feels Malfoy’s fingers curl into his neck, rub against the thick-growing stubble on his own jaw. “I — Is that supposed to sound like me?”

Malfoy smiles faintly. “I happen to know you’re trilingual — English, Parseltongue, and Horny Blithering Gryffindor. I can’t manage the snake, but you should commend the fact that I’m trying to speak your language.”

Harry licks his lips, nails digging into Malfoy’s side so he twitches and gasps a bit. “Can’t hold against me what I say to your face in the throes of passion.”

Malfoy laughs out loud, and the noise cracks in his raw throat. Harry’s heart stops for a beat. “ _Passion_. More like the thrill of an impending blowie.” His fingers loosen on Harry’s jaw — _no, no, no_ — and he turns back onto his side. Harry’s smile fades slightly, but he presses an insistent kiss into the back of Malfoy’s neck. He doesn’t protest, which is nice.

There’s a long time, minutes, hours, maybe, in which neither of them move. Harry’s dozing off when he feels the bed shift, the body in his arms twist, and Malfoy’s fingers brush against his cheeks as he removes Harry’s glasses. There’s a gentle tap of metal against wood, and then he’s settling back into Harry’s arms, against Harry’s dick, more specifically, and he groans quietly. _You’re a menace_ , he thinks, but he _knows_ it when those fingers of his stretch around to weave into the back of his hair. They fit into one another’s hollows, melding into one being as Harry fans his hand out on Malfoy’s stomach and their ankles tangle, and then Malfoy’s sighing and shaking his head a bit and tugging demandingly on his hair with a soft _“You gonna fuck me, or what?”_

Harry doesn’t follow for a moment, because he’s slow at the worst of times. Then Malfoy releases his hair and his upper body disappears over the edge of the bed. He’s picking up something —? He’s picked up his wand from the floor, and clambers hastily back onto the bed, rubbing at sleepy eyes with the blue-veined back of his hand, only making brief eye contact with Harry before he’s shucking at his trousers and briefs. Harry’s heart throbs like a drumroll as Malfoy reveals himself slowly before him, all long lines of muscle and thin, pointy limbs, and Harry just watches, halfway out of his own boxers but in too much of a daze. Malfoy’s on all fours, and then he’s laying against the pillows again, but facedown, positioning one just underneath his hips. He doesn’t look at Harry once, not before he drops his face against his wrist and fists his wand with his other hand, muttering muffled magic under his breath. The muscles in his lower back — the ones by the dimples at the base of his spine — seem to contract and then relax, and Malfoy tries and fails to mute a shrill moan, and Harry’s suddenly very awake.

“What was that? That you just did?” he asks in a hushed voice, sliding his boxers off his legs the rest of the way.

Malfoy just shakes his head, flicks his wand Harry’s way with more incoherent incantations against his arm. When a few, empty seconds have passed and Harry’s still not comprehending, Malfoy lifts his head and lets his want drop to the floor. “Potter, do I really have to ask twice?” he mutters, parts his pale thighs.

Harry moves toward him. This view is familiar, at least. He feels something cold, and when he touches his own lower stomach, it’s wet with lube where his cock rubs against it. When had that —?

“Do you need —?”

“No. I don’t. Potter, _please_ ,” Malfoy cuts him off.

“But —“

“I took care of it. Trust me.”

For some reason, he does. He knee-walks in between Malfoy’s legs. When he rubs an experimental thumb over Malfoy’s hole, he’s relaxed and wet. Harry lets out a wobbly exhale as his cock jerks. And Merlin, because Malfoy’s clearly on his case at whatever-the-fuck o’clock it is, he’s barely gotten a chance to take in the sight of him, arse presented like this for Harry, back arched as it dips down from the pillow, back moving in tiny expansions as he breathes. Harry tries to balance himself with a hand on the small of Malfoy’s back, and he needs to be inside of him, but he can’t see quite so well, and he’s in the midst of muttering _“You’re so beautif —“_ when Malfoy laughs almost frantically down below.

“You blind bat,” he mutters, and as Malfoy twists and turns, there’s a hand on his cock that’s not his own, and Harry’s hissing through his teeth as Malfoy rather elaborately rises onto his hands and knees for the briefest of moments, just to swallow Harry up inside him. He wants it, doesn’t he? He wants it, Harry, that much, that desperately, and Malfoy’s shoulders ease up once Harry’s balls deep, his back still arched obscenely. Whatever spell Malfoy had cast, it’d worked, but it’s still a hot, fast drag, and Harry pulses inside of him as he shifts to loom above him. Carefully, as he thrusts his hips forward just so, and just once, his palm drags down Malfoy’s arm to where his hand, long-fingered and bony, is spread against the white sheets. Harry covers it with his own. Malfoy gasps vocally, but doesn’t move. He’s relinquished his power to Harry, finally, after all his casting and his whining and his griping. All he is is a blur of _pale, hot, soft_ below Harry, into which he’s buried to the hilt, and Harry wants it to last, but he’s been rubbing up against Malfoy in his dreams for weeks and in this bed for Merlin knows how many hours that he can only appeal to the Divine that he should last.

Malfoy’s fingers rise between his own and lock around Harry’s. And considering that this is Malfoy, Harry doesn’t think he’s ever felt such an intimate warmth surge from his fingers all the way to his toes.

Harry thinks he’s breaking Malfoy’s wrist, but he still puts his weight against it, because Malfoy may look breakable but he knows for a fact, feels it, that he can handle it. He sucks in a deep breath as he digs his palm into the middle of Malfoy’s upper back to hold himself up, and his eyes are blurry and bleary and he’s tired and can feel the oncoming side effects of a hangover, so when he fucks Malfoy, he goes slow. Malfoy’s thighs wobble and bounce against his own as he moves, and with every slick inward stroke Malfoy’s spine digs into his palm a bit more, and he’s making these fantastic, bliss-charged hums into the pillows, none of them actual words, but it’s forgivable, because Harry doesn’t think he could form any himself. He watches from beneath his lashes as the shape of Malfoy shifts. It’s him laying his cheek against the pillows beneath him, so he’s not muted by the fabric any longer, and so his royal profile is in Harry’s full view. Harry groans faintly, palm sliding down the length of Malfoy’s spine so he can feel at his arse, the forgiving, soft muscle of it, as it smacks against his own hips as he takes Harry. He nearly loses balance when he reaches out to tuck Malfoy’s hair behind his head, and he lets out a breathless chuckle that he thinks Malfoy echoes, but he can’t be too sure, not with the constant buzz of rapture and need in between his ears. Malfoy’s not complaining about the pace and Harry’s too tired to move faster, but he wants to hear him louder, so he eases his body to cover Malfoy’s so his damp forehead is pressed to his shoulder, his free hand, the one not growing beautifully sweaty in Malfoy’s clenches grip, can reach to tug at Malfoy’s cock between his soft stomach and the sheets.

It’s hazy and lazy but not lacking in verve as Malfoy reaches back to pull at Harry’s hair, keep him close enough that his breath dampens a circle against the back of Malfoy’s neck. Now that Harry’s close, he can hear the dirty swearing under Malfoy’s whimpers, and when Malfoy comes with a sharp intake of breath, a smear across his navel and Harry’s rough palm in the sheets. Harry first feels the tightness around him, and then he could swear he feels it in his bones.

Harry comes inside of him. Later, when he’s collapsed beside Malfoy’s sleeping form, indulgently watching it dribble down the backs of his thighs, he magicks it away. He tucks Malfoy in, who he thinks knocked out shortly after Harry’d pulled out, and rolls onto his back, still touching Malfoy all along his side.

*** 

When Harry stirs, the drapes still open but allowing the sun to bleed in this time, his skin is hot under the light and the bed is empty beside him.

“You’ve kept the garden as it is, I hope? The buyer saw photographs of it. Said he’d even up his price for the ‘imaginative landscaping,’ the fool.”

Harry sits up. He tries the closest nightstand for his glasses. Nothing. The other one bears fruit, though, and he tucks his glasses onto his nose to find Malfoy on the floor in front of the fireplace. He’s on his stomach, chin propped up in his hands rather sweetly as he leans in, clad in a dressing gown with damp hair combed back from his face.

“ _How_ much leftover pudding?” Malfoy pauses, waits. “ _Fuck_ ing hell. You’ll have some do up there, won’t you, Igg? Just please make sure you get rid of any evidence that you do. I don’t want Mr. Fitzwilliam renouncing his claim to Shafiq Manor after he finds Tilly’s sick in some dark corner of the wine cellar. Yes, yes. Alright. Thank you. Did the happy couple make it home okay? Did they say anything to you about missing me? Were a bit too busy to think about me, I’m sure.” Another pause, and Malfoy just chuckles. Not bitterly, either. “And Pansy?” Malfoy shifts to sit upright, tucking his long legs beneath himself. “ _Fuck’s sake,_ ” he adds under his breath. “No, nothing, Iggy. Thank you. I owe you my life. Enjoy your bash. See you tomorrow.” He’s standing up, muttering something akin to _“Crazy bitch”_ until he notices Harry and stops. He’s lovely. Freshly-showered, too, skin a bit pink. He licks his lips, and Harry doesn’t move, not until the faintest of smiles comes to Malfoy’s face and he continues his walk to his wardrobe. “You’re alive, Potter. So full of surprises,” he mutters in passing.

Harry peers up at the ceiling. The Divine may not have granted him endless stamina, but they have given him the begrudged blessing of Draco Malfoy. For now. “ _I’m_ alive? You’re the one who passed out on me. Twice.” Harry smirks, chewing on the inside of his lip.

“Oh, shut it. I’m not embarrassed. The deeds were done. What was there to stay awake for?” Malfoy’s voice is light, and almost difficult to catch as he faces away from Harry, leafing through hanging jumpers in his closet.

Harry could come up with a list, but decides not to answer that. “Who were you talking to?”

Malfoy chuckles. His choice is a fuzzy, burgundy knit that he floats with his wand to drape over the edge of the bed, just a few inches from Harry. “Iggy. He’s been at the venue through the night, keeping an eye on things, getting people home. As expected, nobody but Weasley actually indulged in the pudding, so him and Tilly and all of their strange, little friends are having a bit of a party.”

“That’s nice.”

Malfoy shoots him a strange look over his shoulder. “I’m not trying to be nice. I just don’t want to waste anything.”

Harry thinks he’s trying to be nice, and that Malfoy is more than likely to be wasteful and frivolous. “Right.” Harry smiles easily. Malfoy narrows his eyes at him, and as he’s approaching the bed with a pair of black trousers in hand, Harry slumps down against the mattress, draping the sheets just over his Important Bits like he imagines a Greek statue might.

Malfoy clears his throat, fingers fiddling with the ties on his dressing gown. “Are you going to watch me get dressed?”

Harry watches. “Do you want me to?”

Something tugs at the corners of Malfoy’s mouth. “No.” But then the ties come loose, anyway, and he drops it off his shoulders. Harry tries to hold eye contact, but he was blind half the night prior, and it’d been dark. He watches the lithe muscles under Malfoy’s skin move as he dresses methodically — underwear, socks, trousers, jumper. He’s looking at Harry all the while, and when he’s clothed from head to toe, Malfoy leans into his hands on the mattress, head tilting to the side. “You’re still in my bed, Potter.”

“Technically, it’s mine.”

He regrets saying it as soon as the hesitation flickers across Malfoy’s face. Malfoy clears his throat and recovers quickly. “Continue to be a nuisance, then, and stay as long as you’d like.” Malfoy taps his dressing gown with the tip of his wand, and it folds itself up neatly. A short silence lapses between them, during which the fire roars softly in the background. It’s a bit too warm for Harry’s liking, a fire in May, but Malfoy seems comfortable.

Then, “Do you want me to pretend it never happened?” Harry asks, words a bit slower than before.

Malfoy contemplates this, tapping his wand against the side of his thigh, eyes distantly fixated on the windows. “Yes,” he says, dragging the word out, then worrying his lower lip through his teeth. “But you don’t have to pretend it won’t happen again, if you don’t like.” It’s an invitation, Harry thinks, an invitation that squeezes the air from his lungs and makes a sheepish, sleepy smile come to Harry’s face. Malfoy looks to be schooling his expression into one of further seriousness, but his eyes are glimmering with mischief, he can tell. “I don’t want anyone to know,” he says, cadence earnest. Then he clears his throat, turns away from Harry to point his wand at the bedside table, send his dressing gown fluttering into the open drawer. “And I still don’t like you. But if it means you’ll stop coming unnecessarily to my defense and being overcome by infantile jealousy whenever Clemence or Blaise — now a married man, _mind you_ — is in the picture, I don’t see why we can’t shag.”

Harry frowns thoughtfully, just for Malfoy’s benefit. Inside, he’s fireworks, he’s firecrackers, he’s a hippogriff at a fish market. “A reasonable deal.”

Malfoy snorts, but the noise accompanies a secretive smile Harry will pretend is only, only ever reserved for him. “Yes, I think so. Even if you put me to sleep with your prowess in the sheets. At least one of us will be enjoying it.”

“You’re quite the philanthropist, Malfoy.”

“I’m the talk of the town, I know. Now get out. I need to have a chat with one Pansy Parkinson.” Malfoy stretches his arms above his head as he rolls his eyes.

Harry grimaces. He should have a talk with one Ronald Weasley, but only if one Ronald Weasley has had a talk with one Hermione Granger. Merlin. The moment he steps out of Malfoy’s bed — his bed, but actually Malfoy’s — he’ll be stepping back into the real world, where Ron’s a cheater, where having snogged Malfoy means he’s transitively snogged Clem Creasey, and where Lucius Malfoy remains missing and Malfoy Manor perfectly habitable.

Harry gathers his clothes up into his hands, and when he can’t find his wand for a moment, he reaches to mindlessly check the drawer where Malfoy’d placed his dressing gown.

It slams shut, nearly chomping Harry’s fingers off. “Don’t touch that,” Malfoy snaps, and when Harry looks, he’s lowering his wand arm. Harry blinks and holds up his arms in surrender, and only when he does, with a lump of clothes in one hand and flaccid dick hanging out and an inevitably monstrous bedhead, does he realize how ridiculous he must look.

“Sorry,” he says quickly, wordlessly and wandlessly _Accio_ s his wand out from under the bed, and trips on his way out the door. Kreacher is in the hallway when Harry stumbles out. He shrieks at the sight of a fully-starkers Master and throws up his feather duster, Apparating probably straight to the cellar before the duster can hit the floor and send up a billowing cloud of dust in its wake, directly into Harry’s face. He coughs violently, wrinkles his nose, and slowly eases Malfoy’s door shut behind him. Right. The real world.


	14. Chapter 14

Pansy takes a sip from her tea, and then replaces the cup on its saucer. Draco’s leaning against the edge of the now made bed, fingers drumming against the tightly-pulled sheets, and it’s at the same time that Pansy heaves a dramatic sigh that he speaks, “Are you really going to keep this up?”

Pansy squints and sets the tea down rather aggressively. “It’s like you’re ignoring the fact that I walked in here fifteen minutes ago and asked, ‘how are you, darling?’, only to receive no bloody response. You’re the one giving me the silent treatment.”

Draco considers this, hesitating. It’s fundamentally true. She’d Flooed into Draco’s room, dusted herself off, innocuously beamed at him, kissed him on the cheek, and asked him how he was doing. “Well — yes, you did ask me that, and yes, it is true I did not answer you, but.” He’s approaching this terribly. How does one reprimand one’s friends? Draco doesn’t usually do the reprimanding. He’s nearly always the one saying or doing something wrong, the one being corrected. _Draco, that was rude. Draco, if someone’s got abnormally large ears, it doesn’t mean you look at_ them _as opposed to their eyes_. It doesn’t help that he’s mildly concerned that Pansy will read something in particular off his body language, spot Potter’s underwear on his floor, or pluck a distinct, wiry, black hair from his pillow case. If she manages to do that, Draco would just have to step back and applaud her, because he’s checked the room six times over.

Pansy raises an eyebrow. It’s a dark, pointed arch against her pale forehead. Good grief.

“I can’t tell if you’re acting as if nothing happened last night on purpose,” he moans despondently, voice stifled against his palms that have enveloped his face.

Draco hears her chuckle a little pitifully. “Oh. _Oh_. Draco, dearest. _Really_? I could’ve sworn you were okay. I mean, you did duck out early, but when do you not when there’s socializing involved? I only thought, because you made it through your speech well and all, that you were just fine, but —“

“ _Fuck_!” he explodes, which is probably the most inarticulate thing he could’ve said, but. It’s out there. “I’m not upset about — _Blaise_! Fuck, Pans, you absolute slag! It’s _you_! You fucked the _Weasel_!” He drops his hands, places them on his hips in a way that reminds himself too uncannily of his mother. He doesn’t move them, though. In a time of crisis, he’s certain his mother isn’t the worst person to channel.

Pansy stares at him, slowly moves her hand from her teacup to her lap. Her lips are pigmented a deep purple, but there’s no residue on the white porcelain of the cup. She sighs, but it turns into a yawn and she begins to shake her head before she can get out a word. “That’s what you’re harping on about? Come on, Draco. Who’d’ve thought you’d be so bothered?”

He frowns. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It’s Weasley. What do you care?” she deadpans.

Draco, slightly stung for reasons unexplained, folds his arms over his chest. “It’s not Weasley I care about, in particular. Though — he isn't the worst egg. There are worse. But — it’s _Weasley_. He and Granger have been involved for — how long now? Five years? That’s half a decade. And now you’ve —“ He struggles to find a word for it, gesturing madly with his hands, “— gone and _Pansy Parkinson_ ed all over their relationship!”

Pansy chuckles in amusement. “Oh, darling. Finally we see your sensitive side. Funny, because you practically encouraged it.”

“I made a single joke! Or perhaps two! That’s not — _ugh_.” Draco breathes out deeply. “You’re not taking this seriously. Why am I even bothering?”

Pansy’s pert nose wrinkles as she shrugs her shoulders. “There’s no need to take this seriously _or_ to bother. It’s fine. Ron’s _scared_ of her. He won’t tell her. And if he does, or if she finds out, doesn’t really affect me, does it?” Draco gags a bit at the employment of Weasley’s given name, tugging on the collar of his jumper with a crooked finger. Before he can form a coherent thought, Pansy says, “And the sex was good. I have no regrets, babe.”

Draco feels a bit sick. Not even because he’s recalling the images of Weasley’s arse from his mental storage, but because of her apathy. “Do you remember when we were twelve and my father screwed that seventh-year Jordana Flint? And my mother found out?” He chances a glance at Pansy out of the corner of his eye, then rubs at the bridge of his nose. “Took them ages to recover from that.”

Pansy scoffs. “They’re twenty-three. We all are. Your parents had to recover — they had a twelve-year-old little brat to think of.” She’s smiling when Draco looks at her. “They — Granger and Ron — don’t _need_ to. Who gives a shit? We all know Granger’s destined to marry up, someone who can get her a leg up at the Ministry, like McClaggen, or some shit, and Ron — _Weasley_ , Weasley doesn’t need to be tied down by that prude.”

Draco trembles slightly, his face growing pinker by the minute before he finally strides toward her, toward Pansy, who’s still seated in that armchair all blasé, all fuck-the-police, all _even if I had shits to give, I wouldn’t give ‘em_. “Stop acting like you don’t care!” he squawks. Momentarily alarmed by the trill of his own voice, Draco clears his throat and casts a Silencing Charm at the door over his shoulder. “There are — Merlin — so many things wrong with what you just said. First of all, McClaggen?! Not even ex-Death Eater scum seeking the good graces of the Wizarding World would have that royal bag of dicks. And — fuck.” His fingers clench at his sides, around his wand, and Pansy gazes at him evenly, though her silence means he’s at least gotten under her skin. “I know you care. About Weasley and Granger, I mean. I _know you_ , Pansy. You can’t pretend you don’t care. If you cared about me, about Blaise stringing me on, about his emotionally cheating on that bimbo he married, and you weren’t even _involved_ , by Gods, you care about them.”

Pansy, violet lips twisted and pursed, stands from the chair, looking more threatening than her checkered pinafore should allow.

Draco gulps, but he’s holding his own. “I wanted to help you figure this shit out, this shit you have dug yourself so deep into —“

“Draco, don’t think for one second you’re an authority on for whom or what I care about,” Pansy says, her voice like ice. “Perhaps at some point you knew. But since Blaise — _Blaise_ , of all people — took your little, cold heart and ripped it to shreds, you haven’t listened to a word I’ve spoken to you, about me _or_ about you.” She exhales so her tiny nostrils flare, and then turns on that block heel of hers to clomp toward the fireplace. Draco’s heart beats faster, and he thinks he can feel it in his ears. “That’s all I have to say. Good bye, Draco.” She disappears with a handful of powder and a flare of green flame.

He collapses helplessly into the spot Pansy had left warm, drawing his knees up to his chest and feeling a bit like an idiot. He can’t even deal with his own problems, how should he have known how to approach Pansy’s? Does he regret bringing it up? No. He would’ve definitely exploded sooner or later had he not. Does he regret telling the truth? No. Never. But does he regret that he feels terribly alone now, with one best mate and ex-lover married off and probably now maxing and relaxing on the coast of Italy, and the other — considerably less of an ex-lover but ten times the best mate — having stormed out on him with an implicit, impressive Fuck You?

Well, yeah.

 _At least I’ve got Potter_ , he thinks, full of bitter humor. He practically laughs at himself. _Potter’s libido, though, more like._ He’s got Iggy and Tilly, though they’re off gorging themselves on gold-dusted macarons and chocolate-prune cake with their elf _friends_. So, in sum, Draco has not even a full person, and his house-elves are gone, just not as permanently as his parents. He tries, really endeavors to find it funny, but it’s just awfully depressing. He sits up, gathering himself.

 _Self-pity doesn’t look good on you_ , says Pansy’s voice in the back of his head.

*** 

The following day finds Harry and Malfoy back at the Auror Headquarters. Corner and Goldstein — still on the Lucius Malfoy case — pass Harry on their way to the meeting room, and he swears he hears something that sounds distinctly like _‘Narcissa’_ in passing, but before he can sneak his way in on their heels, Robards sends him a glare and slams the door on his nose.

It’s expected and not out of the ordinary whatsoever. There are several things about that Monday, however, that Harry would classify as unusual.

Pansy and Malfoy aren’t on speaking terms. And meanwhile, Pansy and Ron proceed about their partnership as if nothing has changed — she screams at him for the entire Headquarters to hear when he steps on the dangling lace of her shoe and nearly trips her, and requests that he add an extra pump of caramel to her latte from the Canteen that he retrieves every morning.

Susan visits her DMLE family with her baby Timothy swaddled to her chest, and everyone coos over his big, puffy hazel eyes and pinkish, soft, grabby fingers, including Malfoy. But when Pansy approaches Susan to say hello and goochy-goo to the Office’s most popular attraction, Malfoy avoids her eyes and sinks back down behind Susan’s desk without a word. Later, when Pansy emerges from the toilets, still in the process of zipping up the back of her dress, Malfoy’s concurrently sauntering toward Creasey’s desk with a thick folder in hand. When Pansy lays eyes on him, she glowers, and Malfoy huffily makes a complete one-eighty, slinking back to the desk. Her lips, nails, and the ends of her hair burn with the same, fiery red color throughout the day. It’s strange, the tension between them, and Harry almost likes it for a moment when he sees the joy of a potential excuse to chat up Malfoy dissipate from Creasey’s face when Malfoy turns in the opposite direction.

Harry’s uncertain he and Malfoy ended on good terms after their shag. He did get tetchy about the nightstand, but they’d joked together, hadn’t they? And, even better, they’d joked about a future shag? Future shags _plural_? Harry swears he didn’t make it up. And thus, even the air between him and Malfoy is less foggy than the acidic, stormy clouds that descend whenever Malfoy and Pansy cross within a ten foot radius of one another.

Harry thinks that he’s perhaps the only one who’s noticed, and he’s tempted to bring it up to Ron — Ron, who’d merely smiled at him and squeezed his shoulder in passing that morning, as he’s evidently too busy finalizing a case with Pansy from the week prior — but he’s almost certain the only response he’d receive is a roll of blue eyes and a _‘Get a life, mate, and quit stalking Malfoy. The pointy git’s always moody.’_ And he’s still yet to breach the topic of Ron’s affair with him, but Pansy’s dangerously close at all times. He’ll find a way. He always does.

It does peeve him off that Ron’s pretending as if Harry hadn’t stormed away from him at the wedding. Perhaps he was too drunk to remember, or it all — including sex with Malfoy — had been part of some strange fever dream of Harry’s. He touches the back of his hand to his forehead. Nope. It’s not hot.

A heavy folder stuffed with parchment slams down onto the desk in front of Harry. He’s able to swing his legs off his desk fast enough that his ankles remain intact. Blinking in surprise, he sits up to peer over the edge of his cubicle to find the source. Malfoy’s at Susan’s desk, several cubicles down, but he’s still a valid culprit given the devious, little smile on his face and the wand he’s got in hand as he offers another folder to a flustered-looking trainee.

“Draco,” Harry calls out, standing from his chair and leaning into his palms against his desk. The trainee scuttles off, and Malfoy whips around so fast it disturbs more than a single hair on his perfect head. His eyes narrow on Harry, who just smiles lazily in response, and survey their surroundings. Then he’s slipping out of the cubicle and striding toward Harry’s.

“Don’t call me that,” he mutters stiffly, leaning his hip into the side of Harry’s desk. Harry allows himself to just _look_ for a moment. Malfoy’s clad in a fitted white button-down, though the sleeves flare slightly with ruffles at the wrists. When his eyes travel back up to Malfoy’s face, they’re met with an expectant stare.

“Call you what?” Harry asks innocently, coughing into his fist and fiddling with the folder Malfoy had deposited on his desk.

Malfoy — Draco — puffs a dry laugh and shakes his head as he nods toward the folder. “Those are from the Department of Memory, rejected after submission. I’m aware they’re charmed so only they and the signer can read them, but I did peek inside and look at their note. You left your signature off _every_ document, Potter, which… is really just so _you_ , isn’t it? Your handwriting is abhorrent enough to be infamous throughout the Ministry, yes, but it doesn’t excuse you from adding your signature and exerting your precious, world-saving wrist and fingers for that _extra_ , tedious chicken scratch that is your name.”

Harry raises an eyebrow at the stack of parchment. It makes his heart jump against his ribcage, the fact that Malfoy has touched these documents, the ones detailing Harry’s accounts of Blaise Zabini’s memories. It’s too close for comfort. He tilts his head to the side and shrugs, exhaling only after Malfoy completes his mini-rampage. “Guess I just forgot them, Draco.” His lips quirk up at the corners.

“I’m positive you’re the only one they make this many allowances for — fuck, Potter, I said don’t!” he hisses, grabbing onto the corner of the wall of Harry’s cubicle. They’re at about eye-level, and Malfoy’s face is scrunched up in irritation, and the way he continues to check and see if anyone has heard is endearing, ridiculous, and entertaining. As if anyone cares at this point. Everyone at the Headquarters adores Malfoy, but has also learned to put up with his hissy fits, like the one that had followed the time Creasey swiped an inkwell from Malfoy’s desk without first asking permission.

Harry chuckles, lowering himself down into his chair and swiveling to face Malfoy. “But everyone else calls you by your first name. _Draco_.” He mock-pouts, which prompts an eye-roll from Malfoy.

“You’re not everyone else, Potter,” he murmurs, arms crossing tightly over his chest. His careful eyes scan the room somewhere above Harry’s head. There are times when Harry loathes being singled out, and times when he revels in it. Raising his eyebrows with a smirk at Malfoy, he can’t help but think this is definitely the latter. “Plus, it sounds unnatural. And someone might hear. And… assume things. I’ve already stood here for too long. _Unnatural_.” He’s still not looking at Harry, and Harry’s upset he’s missing the smug look on his face, so he nudges Malfoy in the ankle with his toe. He flinches overdramatically and glares downward.

“Too long, huh? Why are you still here?”

Malfoy’s lips part like he’s about to speak, but then he just harrumphs and gathers himself, strolling stridently away from the desk.

“Thanks for the files, Draco!” Harry hollers after him, peering out of the side of his cubicle to watch Malfoy’s cute arse. Sadly, but also surprisingly brilliantly, he doesn’t get to stare for too long, because Malfoy’s back and he’s shoving Harry back into his chair. Malfoy leans over him, fingertips digging into the middle of Harry’s chest to hold him pinned to the chair, truly looking a bit unsettled in the eyes. His other hand is curled over the wall of the cubicle.

“You really underestimate me, Potter,” he says quietly, holding Harry’s gaze, “and the lengths I’m willing to go to to get back at you for this — this _foolery_.”

Harry’s having trouble breathing, but he grins nonetheless. “That so?” he breathes, pauses, and adds, “ _Draco_?”

Malfoy’s sweep of their surroundings is hasty that time, but he’s bent so low inside the walls that there’s not much to even look at, so his hand drops nearly instantly to Harry’s crotch, which he cups through Harry’s jeans without premise. Harry’s eyes are wide open, and bloody hell, did he have to wear his favorite jeans that day, the ones that are so soft and thin and comfortable that he can feel every one of Malfoy’s digits against him as if he’s only in boxers?

He’s ambivalent, because he’s also grateful for that fact. Malfoy’s countenance is casual, with the slightest hint of a smile.

“Malf — Draco, someone could _see_.”

“Ah ah,” Malfoy tuts softly, shaking his head and rolling the heel of his hand against Harry’s crotch in an achingly slow motion. Sweat starts to form at Harry’s hairline. Malfoy can feel his interest, too, he thinks. “Bad move, Potter.”

All Harry manages to do right then is sigh a little and melt against his chair bonelessly. He doesn’t even have the heart to push Malfoy away. He’s fucked around at work too many times to count, sure, but always behind a closed door. “Fuck,” he mumbles, voice strained and gruff, and as he breathes out a disbelieving chuckle, he swears he can see delight dance behind the steely gray of Malfoy’s irises.

“Hush, Potter. Someone could _hear_.” That’s when Malfoy positively grins, he grins a shit-eating grin, and lowers himself onto his knees in a smooth motion. He’s seen that twice in the span of three days, and feels like the luckiest man on the planet.

Shit. Is that mushy, or is he just horny?

Malfoy’s on the floor in front of Harry, on his knees, hand mindlessly pawing at the bulge in the front of his jeans, and without losing contact, he pokes his head beyond the boundary of the cubicle and looks both ways, like a child playing an intense game of Super Secret Agent Spy. In reality, Harry could very well arm them with countless Disillusionment Charms, Silencing Charms, even, but he doesn’t. Where would be the fun in that?

There’s a soft clink. It’s the sound of his belt buckle hitting the armrest of his chair. Malfoy’s got his tongue between his teeth, all lovely and pale and a little blushy as he undoes Harry’s jeans, a few strands of white hair escaping his coiffed do to graze his forehead. He’d been tipsy last time, and had misplaced his priorities, clearly, so this time Harry’s able to touch Malfoy’s cheek with his knuckles, brush his thumb gently over the peach-fuzzy skin there. He wonders if Malfoy’s able to even grow a beard. He’d look insanely fit either way. Malfoy doesn’t flinch away from the touch, either, like Harry’s fingers burn, just peers up through a fringe of sandy eyelashes as his long fingers curl around the seat of the chair, free to grasp because he’s already got Harry’s dick in his mouth, fucking hell. Harry rubs a palm across his own, damp forehead, breathing shaky. Susan’s left, at least. He doesn’t have to worry about scarring a hardly-one-month-old boy. One of the fifteen other Aurors currently at the Office, though — it’s quite probable.

Harry’s chest moves in time with his harsh breaths, and they’re still in the safe zone, Malfoy pumping the base of Harry’s dick with his hand now. He wants to praise him, call him sweet names he’d smack Harry for even thinking of — nothing too sweet, just babe, or baby, anything to lay claim over Malfoy and his astray lock of blond hair and his lips, his spit-glossed lips, because he’s so bloody eager to suck his dick — why is he so eager? Harry vaguely registers that this is supposed to be punishment just before Malfoy sucks enthusiastically on the head of his dick and dips his tongue against the slit, just as Harry’s on the verge of releasing some terrible, throaty grunt. He’s able to swallow it down.

“Harry?” A distant, cheery voice. Ron. Fuck. “Harryyyy.”

“Mal — _Draco, fuck_ ,” Harry urges, though he’s not entirely sure what he’s requesting of him. Malfoy looks twice as aghast as Harry feels, so he seems to understand, and because Ron’s footsteps are audible now, Malfoy ducks under Harry’s desk. Harry rolls into his desk possibly a bit too hard, because he hears the withering _‘ow’_ just as Ron appears in his peripheral vision. It’s possible he’s crushed Malfoy. Just a bit. Harry’s stomach digs into the edge of his desk. He hopes that he looks all the part of a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed Auror sitting ramrod straight in his chair — precisely how Harry Potter, lazy arse of a Boy-Who-Lived extraordinaire, never does. In fact, it’s quite reminiscent of Hermione in their very first Potions class ever at Hogwarts.

“Hey, mate.” Ron smiles, leaning into the cubicle wall just as Harry’s whipping open the folder Malfoy brought him. Acting natural, and all, as one does. “Y’alright?”

Harry blinks rapidly, as if he hadn’t heard Ron approaching and is registering his presence for the first time. “Oh, hey,” he says, shutting the folder resolutely. Just a brief interruption to his hard work. It’s fine. “Yeah, yeah, I’m… good. What’s up?” He has to physically restrain his jaw from dropping, though, because at the word ‘up,’ there’s a very welcome-and-unwelcome intrusion below — a quiet snicker he’s horrified Ron can hear, and a warm tongue sliding up the underside of his dick. He jolts a bit in his seat. Ron doesn’t notice. Harry’s going to hell.

“Oh, er.” Ron’s freckly face flushes faintly. “I… I was… I know we left things on a bad note on Saturday.” He bites his lip. “At the wedding. I know you were upset. And I was — Merlin, Harry, was I _hammered_ —“

“It’s fine. It’s okay. Forgiven. All is forgiven,” Harry spits out, because Malfoy’s doing something with his tongue, something he’s positive is obscene, because a wetness suddenly pools on the bare skin of Harry’s ankle, and it’s got to be dripping from somewhere. He winces. “Well, no, that’s — that’s wrong. Not all, of course. You, you know what I mean.”

Ron chuckles sheepishly, letting out a deep breath as he nods. “I, yeah. I know. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, actually. I still haven’t talked to Hermione.” He’s frowning now.

“Have you not?” Harry asks, labored, just to fill the silence that probably isn’t as long as he feels it to be.

“Nope.” Ron folds his arms over the wall of the cubicle and rests his chin against them. “I don’t… I don’t even know where to begin. Where I would begin. I know it’s — bloody hell, it’s so shitty of me, _I’m_ shitty, I’m a walking piece of shit, because you’re trapped in the middle of this, but I have no one else, Harry, and I thought — I dunno. Thought we could go out for a pint, or something. Talk about it. You could help me.” Ron smiles self-deprecatingly. Harry feels a faint tug of sympathy. He also feels Malfoy’s hand tug at his dick. “‘Cos, like, knowing me, I’d try to say one thing and would say somethin’ else entirely. Neither of us is very good at words, but. Thought maybe if we put our heads together, we’d have at least half a brain between us.”

Harry’s brows crease and he starts to nod, but then Malfoy mutters, _“Half a brain? That’s wishful thinking,”_ and he has to force out a violent cough that he thinks he’s really overdone when Ron cranes a hand out to clap him on the shoulder.

“Sorry,” Ron says, worry clouding his brows. “I’m totally fucking unfair, I know.”

“No!” Harry rushes to say, shaking his head. Ron is visibly startled by his loudness. “I mean — no. Yeah. We should totally get a pint, yeah? Listen, I… you’re right, I do feel a bit weird in the middle of things, y’know, but you need all the help you can get.” He smiles faintly at Ron. He realizes then that he’s been gripping a fancy quill half this time — a gift from some foreign Ministry dignitary — and he’s effectively smashed the expensive Diricawl feather into a misshapen needle. “So, er. There’s that banquet on Thursday, the one for _ADAMC_ , so I wouldn’t talk to Hermione before that, knowing what it means to her. Er, pints on Friday after work? ‘slong as I can find something to do with Malfoy, maybe get Parkinson to watch him, or something.” That’s unlikely, given their current frosty relations. He’s not sure what part of his spiel Malfoy disliked, but he gasps suddenly when he feels a bit of teeth.

“Yeah,” Ron says, too obliviously relieved to comment on Harry’s odd behavior. “Yeah, that sounds brill, mate. Thanks.” He nods absently, gaze drifting off into the distance above Harry’s head. “Parkinson… yeah.” He shakes his head slowly, rubbing his hand across his jaw. “Harry, mate, that was… fuck, really need to talk about it. About that, too. It was — it was something, mate.”

There’s a sudden thud against the underside of the desk — Malfoy’s head — accompanied by a whispered string of swears, and Harry laughs a bit hysterically. “Shit, er, foot’s asleep. Banged my knee. Sorry. _Owwww_ ,” he says, affecting a pained look that’s more than likely half insane.

Ron looks confused, but then a shrill _“Weasley!”_ echoes through the Office, and he sighs, throwing his thumb over his shoulder in a gesture of explanation to Harry. “Thanks again, mate,” he murmurs as he departs.

Harry counts to ten in his head. Then Malfoy’s shoving Harry away from the desk, stumbling out on his hands and knees and rubbing the spot on his head he’d hit. He whines pitifully, sprawling on his back on Harry’s cubicle floor and squeezing his eyes shut. Harry’s busy tucking his wet cock back into his boxers if, on the off chance, Ron decides to return.

“I can’t believe I was that close to hearing the Weasel talk about coital relations with _Pansy_ ,” Malfoy whimpers, then sits up against the wall of Harry’s cubicle, belatedly becoming hyperaware of all the dust bunnies he’s covered in and swiping at his black trousers. “That’d be like — like listening to creepy Uncle Rodolphus talk about sex with your _sister_.” He uses his wand to preen his trousers clean, eyes flickering to Harry. “Why are you a magnet for trouble?”

Harry breathes out, relaxes back into his chair. “You started it.” He smiles at Malfoy for a moment. “And didn’t finish.”

Malfoy blows at the lock of hair on his forehead and rolls his eyes.

Harry puts up a Disillusionment Charm. No _Muffliato_ , though. Where would the fun be otherwise?

*** 

Harry’s shagging Malfoy.

Harry Potter. Is. Shagging. Draco Malfoy.

He’d say it aloud to himself — safe in the confines of his own home, beyond the reach of nosy eavesdroppers — to test out how those words feel on his mouth, being formed by his lips, but he doesn’t. His reticence is mostly for Kreacher’s sake. He thinks he’s plenty scarred after what he’s mentally deemed the Naked Encounter Outside Malfoy’s Bedroom.

Point being — Harry’s shagging Malfoy. Has shagged him now a grand total of three times — once in Paris, once at home, once at work. He’s covering all the bases nicely, he thinks, Christening them all one by one, though it’s not to say there shan’t be repeats.

It’s Thursday, though, and the blowjob under the desk is the last Harry’s felt of Malfoy’s touch. His own touch, however, with the help of that particular memory, has kept him amply sated every night. On top of that, Malfoy’s been treating him no differently than usual. He’s been worse, that’s for sure, like the coldness following their kiss at The Handmaiden. But he’s been better, too, for those fleeting seconds, slipping too quickly through Harry’s fingers, that Malfoy smiles at him genuinely after he’s just given his mouth a pornographic wipe of the hand, the moments that Malfoy truly looks at him, holds eye contact not to be defiant or to have the upper hand, to get the last word in, but because he wants to look.

The more he thinks about it, Harry’s disappointed. And he doesn’t deserve to be. He got what he’d wanted when the madness had all begun — when he’d stared into the bubbles percolating through his pint at The Handmaiden and decided that yes, he truly did just want to fuck Draco Malfoy. This remains true. If Malfoy cut him off right then and Harry had to crawl back to Danica, tail between his guilty legs and try to go at it with meaning, he couldn’t. It’s fantastic the way it is. Harry thinks so, at least. It doesn’t even matter to him if Malfoy is unsatisfied, as he’s certain Malfoy would very blatantly declare this to Harry, nor is he worried about where he ranks on Malfoy’s scale of a good fuck, if Malfoy extols Harry the way Harry does him (he doubts it), because he knows he’s only up against Blaise Zabini, who’d never seemed particularly interested in Malfoy himself. Even so, when Harry’s at work, when he watches Malfoy lean over Clem’s desk at Headquarters, watches him combat the barrage of shameless flirting with pitying laughs smothered against the back of his hand, he feels _desperate_. He feels the desperation, or the frustration, at the very least, he thinks was tangible between them in Paris, just before Malfoy had kissed him so briskly, like he’d hungered for it, like he hadn’t given the repercussions a second thought, like he hadn’t given anything a second thought, because, _really_ , if he had, Harry would’ve never been kissed. He’s aware that jeering Malfoy is the key to provocation, but he hasn’t been as successful as he was in Paris. It’s mad of him to want Malfoy to go mad, but on the surface, that’s exactly what he desires. When they’d stumbled across the landing at Grimmauld Place, Malfoy had tasted like firewhisky and _Harry_ because he was a fucking tease, Harry had been able to taste him so greedily. Kissing Malfoy after he’d just had Harry’s cock in his mouth had been gross and weird and, admittedly, the biggest turn-on Harry could imagine. But now, after Malfoy had finished sucking him off after the minor snafu with Ron, he’d almost been waiting for him to hop up onto his feet and smack a kiss to his mouth, a real kiss, one that meant Harry could feel how much he craved it. Instead, Malfoy had coughed a bit and muttered something about his _mouth needing a good cleansing after that_ before he’d wandered off. Is it ungrateful of Harry to have such impassioned fantasies? It’s conceivable — and, on second thought, unfortunately likely — that Malfoy could give a pixie’s arse about Harry, much less _craves_ anything at all from him. Though putting an articulate word to it makes Harry shudder, if it’s affection he wants, he should really just firecall Danica because she’s always been that way with him. They’ve always held a mutual, silent understanding of the casual status of their relationship, ever since it’d first blossomed, but she’s still a doter. She dotes on Harry, wants to see him when she can, kisses him when she can. And it’s fine. They’re not dating, and she can do that, and Harry likes it, and it’s fine.

It’s not that he wants Malfoy to dote on him. Merlin knows Harry receives enough remonstration about his occasionally slovenly appearance, intellect, and the clothes strewn about his bedroom floor… among other things. But he does want to kiss Malfoy, and he doesn’t want to have to need a reason to kiss Malfoy, because he wants Malfoy to kiss him, but, whether inane or not, Malfoy always has a reason for his every action.

He’s an enigma to Harry. Weak but inviolable, nasty but beautiful, infuriatingly methodical, infuriatingly an utter dickhead. And as he lives, breathes, and juggles the complex atomic clusters that make Malfoy _Malfoy_ , he looks bloody good doing it.

“Malfoy,” Harry says. It’s intentional that he says it out loud, though it’s a miraculous wonder he hasn’t accidentally blurted it out during intensive sessions of zoning out on nothing but Malfoy. Which… are not frequent. By any means. Never. He’s also returned to using his surname. It’s a bit hazardous, he’s realized, parading the word ‘Draco’ around, unless he’s in the mood to lose control of himself completely.

“What is it, Potter,” Malfoy mutters under his breath. Half the Headquarters has cleared out for the evening, and Malfoy is photographing the bulletin boards with Susan’s camera for future reference.This is a menial responsibility that has befallen the Auror Headquarters secretary ever since, as an early trainee, Parkinson hexed Ron, missed, and torched half of an important investigation’s assemblage.

Harry clears his throat and spins once in his chair. “The banquet tonight,” he says, before realizing that’s neither a statement nor a question. “Hosted by _ADAMC_ for the Goblin Liaison Office. The Head of Office should be there, actually. Exciting stuff.” That’s not much better, either.

Malfoy lowers the camera and stares at him blankly over his shoulder. Harry swallows hard. “Yes, I know. Granger’s thing.”

“I have to go, y’know, to support Hermione, show my face and voice my support as a somewhat politically important figure,” says Harry. Malfoy snorts at the word ‘somewhat.’ “Is there any chance Pansy could come over, stand on your guard while I’m gone? For just an hour, max.”

Malfoy’s smile is tight. “Potter, if you were to let Pansy defend my life’s worth tonight, she’d kick up her legs and allow me to be vanquished by whatever magically-adept hitman appears at your doorstep.”

Harry frowns. Right.

“… I could come along.”

Harry starts. “What?”

“I could come to the banquet. It’s been a while since I’ve attended one of my own events. I usually don’t bother, or if I show up, I at least go undercover. But it might be nice to not have to make the effort.”

Harry’s not sure why he’s surprised. “Hermione hired you for this one, too,” he states.

Malfoy turns back toward the bulletin boards. His shoulders seem to slump slightly at the mention of Hermione. “Of course she did. I’m fairly certain Granger’s the reason I continue to be contacted by Ministry folk about securing event space. All her damn referrals. It’s awfully nice. And totally unnecessary. It makes me feel indebted to her.”

Harry smiles a little. “Hermione has a way of making you feel like that.”

“Mm.” The camera flashes as Malfoy takes the last few shots, then lets the camera rest against his chest so it’s dangling from just the neck strap. Harry’s expecting their conversation to be over by the time Malfoy asks, back still turned to Harry, “You know who’s a downright knob, Potter?”

Harry tucks a few pieces of parchment into Malfoy’s new filing system in his drawers. “Me?”

Malfoy laughs, short and sweet. “Well, also correct. But on the topic of the Goblin Liaison Office, who’s a downright knob?”

“Ah.” Understanding dawns on Harry’s face as he kicks the drawer shut and leans back in his chair again, smiling easily. “Then it could be none other than Head of Goblin Liaison Office, Mr. Gareth Puffer-Tate.”

Malfoy’s pleasant but sly surprise is apparent as he turns. “You’ve met him, then?”

Harry affects his best broad-shouldered, squinty-eyed, I’m-the-Savior look. “I’ve shaken hands with every Ministry official at least once, Malfoy.” When Malfoy scoffs, it fizzles away. “But him, I’ve had the luxury of running into several times. Six, maybe. Tried to get into my pants on five.”

Malfoy’s smiling again, this time in amusement, and he traipses toward Harry like a gazelle, his legs all clean, black lines in his cropped trousers. It means his Slytherin-green tartan socks are visible above his loafers. “No shit,” he mutters. “Me too. It’s half the reason I’ve stopped attending any and all Ministry events, in case that wanker shows his face. Well — there’s the whole ex-Death Eater thing, but Poofter-Tate is a rather large contributing factor.”

Harry can’t help but be transfixed by mischievous glint in Malfoy’s eyes, the curl of his lips. He chuckles, shakes his head. “He’s got to be going on fifty now.”

“Past fifty. _Must_ be. That walrus moustache gets worse with every passing year.”

“Don’t forget about the pocket watch.”

“Gods, that’s impossible. How could I? _‘Well, would’ya look at the time, Draco!’_ Cue the obnoxious watch check. _‘Yes, time for you and Gareth to have a little chat, just the two of you, us two men.’_ ”

Harry’s in the midst of bending over in a cackle, Malfoy looking rather pleased with himself, when Creasey appears at Malfoy’s side, hand coming to rest on his shoulder. Malfoy looks at it critically before his gaze flits to Creasey with a piqued brow. “Whaddup, homies?” Clem grins, reaches out to slap Harry’s shoulder in a brotherly way, too. “Overheard a little chitchat about the banquet tonight.”

Malfoy rolls his eyes. “Clemence, you don’t have to pretend as if you and I weren’t _chitchatting_ about that very banquet an hour ago.”

Clem chuckles. “Always straight to the point, blondie. I like it. You’re going, then?”

“Yes, I will be going.”

Clem fistpumps, jostling Malfoy slightly so he has to grab onto Harry’s cubicle to remain upright. “Nice. Nice. I’ll be there, too,” he explains to Harry, smiling jovially.

Harry coughs and rakes a hand through his hair, shooting Malfoy a questioning look. Malfoy just shakes his head cluelessly. “Really?” he says. “Didn’t know you were involved in _ADAMC_. Or goblin relations.”

Creasey bats a hand at the air. “Of course I am. My father was a goblin, after all. Important guy. Earkrat Creasey. Haven’t you heard of him?”

Harry hesitates, giving Creasey a once-over. He’s too tall to be half-goblin, but Harry thinks, if he really scrutinizes his face, he can spot some resemblance to Griphook-esque features…

“Merlin, that explains so much,” Malfoy murmurs, hand on his chin as he gazes at Clem, equally perplexed.

Clem’s eyes go wide and he looks at them in turn. “Jeez, men, am I that good of a liar nowadays?” He barks a laugh. “Fuck! Should’a seen the looks on your faces!”

Harry has to stifle a laugh of his own. Malfoy folds his arms over his chest, appearing as if he still doesn’t believe Creasey. “You were joking?”

“ _Yes_! Come on, blondie, get with it! And the Head’s my uncle on my mom’s side. That’s why I’m going.”

Malfoy chokes a bit, but schools his features expertly. “Alright.” He plucks Clem’s hand off his shoulder, and in reconciliation, gives his cheek a pat and Harry a pointed look. “We were just leaving, weren’t we, Potter?”

Harry, whose desk is a mess and whose fly is undone as it usually is after hours of sitting hunched over in a chair, swiftly buttons his jeans and nods. “Yep. Leaving.” He hops onto his feet, takes stock of his desk, which there is no hope of organizing in the allotted time.

“Plus, why wouldn’t I go? Granger and I are good pals! Dangerous Granger, Danger Granger Danger, gotta support her and all the good shit she’s doin’, yeah?” Creasey is babbling, stationary by Malfoy’s side as he watches Harry pick himself up.

“Yeah, that’s good, Creasey,” says Harry absently, tucking his chair in and squeezing out of his cubicle past Clem. He nods vigorously at Malfoy, who takes the hint and forces a smile at Creasey, giving him a salute that’s probably a bit over the top.

“Have a splendid evening, Clemence,” Malfoy says. He follows as Harry speed-walks toward the hallway.

“I’ll see you later tonight, though!” Clem yells. He’s still at Harry’s cubicle. “You’re my date, blondie, don’t bail on me!”

Once they make it into the hallway leading to the lifts, out of Creasey’s sight, Harry feels Malfoy’s eyes on the side of his face. They’re still walking at hyper speed, as if Clem might bust out of a ceiling tile, which is more likely than one might believe. When Harry meets Malfoy’s eyes, his own smile inevitably starts to grow, and, much to Harry’s shock, Malfoy is the first to break.

“Aaaugh!” Malfoy shrieks through a high laugh, hands covering his face. He’s walking blindly, and managing to do so with skill. “Please fucking tell me you also thought he was being serious!”

Harry has to clutch his stomach as doubles over, grinning, thankfully staying on his feet. He’s still less graceful than Malfoy with his eyes shut. “I did, I did, fuck,” he breathes laughingly, pushing his glasses back up his nose. “You were — _‘that explains so much.’_ ” Harry’s nasally impression of Malfoy is terribly inaccurate, but there’s not much he can do as he’s stumbling to catch himself against the wall by the lifts.

“I do _not_ sound like that,” Malfoy protests, but his tone is scornful for all of two seconds until a lift arrives and he steps inside, grabbing onto a hanging strap as he flashes Harry an unreasonably stunning smile. “But he’s — he’s related to _fucking_ Puffer-Tate! He’s related to him!” Harry nods like mad as he gets into the lift, because he’d almost let that golden truth escape his mind. “ _That_ explains so much,” Malfoy adds, but in an imitation of Harry’s poor imitation. Imitation-ception.

“So being an outrageous flirt who can’t take a hint runs in the blood.”

Malfoy’s breathing a little easier now, leaning against the wall opposite Harry as he tucks his hair behind his ear. Nothing’s out of place, though, so there’s nothing to tuck away. “Merlin, it must,” he mutters, and he exhales audibly, just watching Harry. There’s a chance it’s wishful thinking, but he’s certain Malfoy’s looking at him the way he had in the hotel room in Paris, just before he’d…

The lift comes to an abrupt halt. “Level six, Department of Magical Transport, incorporating the Floo Network Authority, Broom Regulatory Control, Portkey Office, and Apparation Test Center,” says the witch’s placid voice. Two women in matching baby blue robes step inside, engrossed in conversation as they divide the ocean of floor between Harry and Malfoy. Harry sighs, lets his head fall back against the wall. Malfoy’s attention has wandered, but Harry thinks he catches a little smile there through the frizz of one woman’s hair.

*** 

By this point, Harry should be accustomed to seeing Malfoy in formalwear. It should be boring, he should be uninterested, especially because it’s not a tight-fitted Muggle suit he’s wearing that evening, but instead a set of black satin dressrobes. They nip in at the waist, are tight across his shoulders, and have bell sleeves. He’s never safe.

The banquet is at an absurdly lavish home in Westminster overlooking Regent’s Park. It doesn’t really scream old magic to Harry, so he has a sneaking suspicion Malfoy bought out the property simply because of its grandiosity.

They stand on the doormat in the foyer as loud, clamoring conversation drifts from neighboring rooms. Malfoy grimaces, fiddles with a button on his robes. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to look Granger in the eye, Potter,” he confesses, eyes fixed ahead.

Harry feels the same, but he also feels itchy. He’s in the same plain, black dressrobes he always wears to events; over the years, he’s had plenty of offers for tailoring appointments, custom-made robes, endorsement deals, all of which he ignores in favor of the same set. He justifies it as being a statement, that _fame hasn’t changed him_ , and all. He always regrets not letting fame usurp him, though, whenever he’s reminded of how bloody itchy these are. “There’s a good chance she’ll greet us and forget we exist. She’s always a bit… harried. At these things.”

“Forget? About _me_? Pah,” Malfoy mutters, and takes a few steps off the doormat. He sneezes when a flower arrangement decorated with peacock feathers brushes up against him, and startles when a particularly small goblin emerges from a door on his left, toddling right between Malfoy’s legs on his path to the toilet.

Harry walks up to him, gazing at his profile with a faint smile. “Ah, yeah. Goblins at a banquet for goblins. Shocker.”

Malfoy digs the tip of his wand into Harry’s side, which hurts more than it sounds like it would. “Hush, you. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a goblin outside of Gringotts.”

Harry huffs out a chuckle, rubbing at his bruising rib. “Don’t let them hear you say that.”

The property is large, but Malfoy’s used extension charms on the rooms even so. When they step into the next room, they’re still met with almost too many people and goblins squeezed into one space, drinks and food in everyone’s hand.

“Did everyone bring their extended family? I don’t remember the guest count being this high,” Malfoy says quietly. “This has to be everyone and their bloody cousin Marybelle.”

“Everyone and their nephew Clem Creasey,” Harry corrects, just as Clem exits a fray of goblins to meet them by the doorway.

“My date is spectacularly late,” says Clem, but he kisses Malfoy’s cheek and touches his waist all the same.

“Only by forty-five minutes.” Malfoy frowns. “It was Potter’s fault.” Harry raises an eyebrow and doesn’t comment. Malfoy looks out at the crowd again. “Potter, have you brought your —? I need a toke,” he declares, backing out of the room.

Harry meets his eyes. This is certainly unforeseen. “Er, yeah.”

“There’s a balcony in the master bedroom upstairs.” Malfoy grabs Harry’s upper arm as he shuffles them backward out of the room. He looks witheringly at Creasey and sighs. “You can come, too, Clemence.”

They’re on the balcony in the cool mid-May evening air. Harry’s cast a few spells so they’re invisible to anyone out for a night stroll. Creasey has affected a lazy stance against the railing and pinned Malfoy with a look Harry can only describe as lovestruck. Malfoy’s finished coughing violently, it seems, and can now suck on the joint Harry’s lit up for him without tears springing to his eyes. “Thought you never smoked,” Harry says, reflecting on the night Malfoy had locked him in his living room. Malfoy rolls his eyes and hands him the spliff.

“I don’t. I just — Merlin, I got a glimpse of Gareth’s face, and I wasn’t sure I could go without socking his stupid mug.” His eyes dart to Clem. “Sorry, Clemence. And if you’re not allowed to get wasted, Potter, I’m not either. It’s only fair.”

Harry raises an eyebrow, takes a drag from the spliff. “I didn’t realize that rule was still in effect.” He scratches the back of his neck. “May have broken it at the wedding.”

Malfoy just stares at him.

“You guys don’t like my Uncle Gary?” Creasey asks, leaned into his elbows, gangly legs crossed at the ankles. “What’s not to like?”

Malfoy scoffs and takes the spliff back from Harry. After considering Clem, he says, “You’re a decent looking bloke, Clemence.” Then, “It’s a relief to know he doesn’t perv on his relatives.”

Creasey seems to have blocked out half of that, because he smiles, enamored. “You’re in love with me, blondie. I’ve known it from the first time we met.”

Harry realizes it’s just him, Creasey, and Malfoy, and if he found himself on a balcony just with Creasey and an arbitrary third individual, he’d probably choose the random to relate to, too. But he still feels a ball of warmth form in his tummy when Malfoy shares with him a bemused look. 

***

When they make it downstairs, Harry feels a little blitzed. The moment he steps into the common room, Hermione corners him with a quick hug, blanches at the smell of him, and drags him into the hallway. Creasey drags Malfoy in the opposite direction, probably to ply him with foods he thinks are aphrodisiacs. With her wand, Hermione draws an X shape in the air over his body, muttering under her breath, and seems more pleased when she leans in and sniffs him again.

“You’ve gotta teach me that,” Harry mutters, looking down at himself as if his appearance might have changed. Nope. Same itchy robes.

“Another time,” Hermione says, tucking her wand into an undetectable pocket in the skirt of her dress. “Okay. Listen. Thank you for coming, Harry, I really appreciate it, you know I do.” She smiles patiently and fixes the collar of his dressrobes. “And I know you hate this, events like these, so let me make things easier for you. Question: ‘Hello Harry Potter, good to see you! What do you think of the push to bring the existing goblin union into the authority of the Ministry-affiliated Association for the Defense and Advocacy of Magical Creatures, which already encompasses the Elvish Workers’ Union, and integrating the structure of the successful Elvish Workers’ Union into what will be the new Goblin Workers’ Union?’” Harry thinks he’s following, but the words are pouring out of Hermione’s mouth at an unprecedented speed. “Answer: ‘Hi! That’s me, Harry Potter,’” she’s got her fingertip pressed to her forehead, as if to represent his scar, “‘and I approve wholeheartedly.’ Question: ‘Fantastic, Harry Potter! Could you please share with me the details of this proposal?’ Answer: ‘I would love to, as I’m well-versed in them, because I would not support a cause in which I was not fully educated, but to give you the best experience, I’m going to refer you to Hermione Granger. She would be happy to chat with you. She’s the one in the obnoxiously poofy dress, so she’ll be easy to spot.’” She takes a breath, puts her hands on her hips, and stares at Harry. “Did you get that?”

There’s a little fold between Harry’s eyebrows. “I… think so.”

“Oh, Harry. Summary: If they ask you if you support my proposal, please say yes, and make it genuine. If they ask you about it, send them to me.” Hermione sighs, smiles at him wearily, but it’s a real smile, that Hermione-smile that only means she’s working her arse off for something she truly cares about. She leans over to kiss his cheek and smooth out his robes once more. “I’ll leave you to it, then. They’ve got treacle tart, if you’re interested. And Gareth wants to speak with you.” She wrinkles her nose in sympathy. “And — thanks for bringing Malfoy. I’m glad you did. I always invite him to these and he never comes.” Then she’s gone in a whirl of brown curls and a swish of her voluminous skirt.

Harry tries to process Hermione’s words a second time, replaying them in his head, before he heads in to join the uproarious party. He shakes hands with faceless people, smiles and nods and communicates his approval of the proposal, clapping them on the arm if they’re hardy enough, kissing them on the cheek otherwise, and pointing out Hermione in the crowd to each one. They all do the characteristic old-person-squint as they scan the room for Hermione’s puffy hair and puffier dress. He’d lost track of Malfoy when Hermione pulled him aside, but from the corner of his eye, he sees a sleek, black figure approaching, followed by one more rotund, more orange, and unmistakably Gareth Puffer-Tate.

“Potter,” Malfoy greets, taking him by the elbow and squeezing hard. Malfoy’s eyes are still a bit bloodshot, he notices, and there’s something of a smile playing at the nooks of Malfoy’s pained expression. “Look who I found. He said he simply _had_ to see you.”

“Harry Potter!” It’s the twentieth time Harry’s heard his voice in that same jolly tone that evening. “It’s been too long. And now I have my two favorites in one place.” Gareth chortles. He’s clad in orange, vaguely sparkling robes, stitched with silver stars and moons. It’s something Dumbledore might have worn, but in a much more garish color, and three sizes larger. His walrus moustache is thriving. He’s still got a full head of mostly sandy hair, but it’s intermixed with white.

Harry forces a smile, shakes Gareth’s hand. Malfoy’s iron grip on his arm is surprisingly grounding. “Mr. Puffer-Tate. How’s your evening been?”

“Oh, please, enough with that. Please call me Gareth, Harry. It’s the least you could do for me.” Gareth smiles and touches Malfoy’s waist. Harry glances there a bit protectively. He realizes that the hand closer to Harry is clutching an ostentatious tiger’s head walking stick, and that’s the only reason Harry himself is safe from the physical contact. For now. “It’s been grand, thank you. The food is magnificent. Your events are always consistent in this way, Draco. Just marvelous. But — I do feel due for a bit of fresh air, and preferably with my two favorite men.”

Malfoy licks his lips, smiling dryly. “Potter and I would be glad to show you the upstairs. The rooms are just fantastic. And there’s a balcony, as well, so you can get your fill of fresh air, Gareth. Shall we?”

Harry has a feeling Malfoy’s up to something. It’s not one of those _Ron,_ _Hermione, I swear_ moments he had back in sixth year, but because he feels he knows Malfoy a bit better now, he can detect when something’s off about him. And… he’s acting strange. Or then it’s just because Malfoy’s even more stoned than him.

“Lead the way, Draco!” Gareth enthuses. Malfoy finally releases Harry’s arm, flashing him a discreet look before he’s heading into the hall with Gareth on his heels. He snatches a drink from some poor, unsuspecting soul’s hand and gives it to Gareth, who squeals in delight. Harry shakes his head and follows.

“I would be correct in assuming this is one of your many properties, Draco?” Gareth inquires as they traverse the stairs.

“Yes. I’ve had it for several months now. It’s one of my favorites, and I’ve put an appalling amount of work into this one, but I’ve yet to find a buyer willing to take it off my hands.”

“Such a shame. The beauty,” Gareth mutters into his glass. Harry tags along behind him. Gareth’s eyes are on Malfoy’s arse. Abruptly, there’s an arm around Harry’s waist, too, and he’s pressed into a slightly sweaty, ample frame. When Malfoy peers back at them over his shoulder, there’s a smirk on his lips.

“The master bedroom,” Malfoy introduces. He pushes open the double doors he, Harry, and Clem had gone through earlier to reach the balcony.

Gareth doesn’t have a third hand to press to his chest in awe, as one is rubbing at Harry’s hip and the other is precariously balancing his walking stick and the glass of whisky, but if he did, Harry’s positive he’d do so. “Fabulous!” he lauds, without examining the room once. He’s eyeing Malfoy a bit hungrily. Harry raises an eyebrow. Malfoy ignores them both and opens all the doors to the balcony. A starry, navy sky greets them, and the park stretches beyond with a faint sparkle of London lights on the horizon. The cool air rushes in and Gareth ruffles beside Harry. “Just what I needed, Draco. Thank you.”

Malfoy smiles airily and nods toward an armchair across from the bed. He chuckles, but just for a moment, clipping it off when he realizes what he’s doing. “Potter, help Gareth sit down.” He waves his wand so the door to the hallway closes behind them, muffling the noise of the downstairs. Harry does as he’s told, staring quizzically at Malfoy all the while. Once Gareth’s released a sigh of relief to be off his feet, Harry moves to stand by Malfoy next to the bed. He leans against it, momentarily distracted from all the weirdness by the silhouette of Malfoy against the moonlight. Why are the inner workings of his mind nothing but a cliché? “What do you think of Granger’s proposal, Gareth?”

Gareth Puffer-Tate seems to contemplate this for a moment, tapping his tiger-emblazoned walking stick against the floor. He frowns. “I —“

“Knowing the way you think — because, Gareth, I feel you and I are at that point in our relationship where we’ve reached a mutual understanding about one another’s views on the world — you _must_ think it’s a vital move for the Ministry to make. A no-brainer. The Ministry has always had a terrible reputation when it’s come to relations with magical creatures, like werewolves and such, but Granger’s Association, particularly with its establishment of the Elvish Workers’ Union, has shone a noble light on the British Ministry of Magic. Other European ministries are seeking to emulate what Granger’s doing over here. And, of course, having worked with goblins your whole life — you’re quite possibly the most knowledgeable man there is when it comes to goblin-related topics — I’m sure you already know that wizard-goblin relations have always been tense, and that the formalization of their workers’ union through Granger’s incredibly professional, well-received structure for the Elvish counterpart could do nothing but improve the good intentions of Wizarding society in the eyes of the goblins.” Harry tears his eyes away from Malfoy to eye Gareth, whose expression has morphed to one halfway between confusion and wonderment. Malfoy chuckles. “It’s like I just took the words right out of your mouth, isn’t it? Terrifying, really, how in tune we are, you and I.” Gareth nods vaguely and swallows the remainder of his whisky. “I suspect you will, no doubt, approve Granger’s proposal.”

“Oh,” Gareth utters. “Why, yes —“

“Marvelous.” Malfoy smiles, bounces slightly on the balls of his feet. “Just as I suspected, a great decision. Coming from a family with what were once close ties to the Ministry, I must admit that for the decade you’ve held this position, you’ve always been a Head of Office that I’ve truly admired for your progressiveness and forward-thinking leadership.”

Gareth is silent for a few seconds, which allows Harry to marvel at the level of manipulation he’s just witnessed. And he kind of wants to snog him. Not Gareth, obviously. “I have always though of myself as rather progressive,” Gareth says offhandedly, then smiles warmly at Malfoy’s compliments. “That makes me very happy to hear, Draco.” Harry’s under a spell — definitely just a metaphorical one — but as a pawn in Malfoy’s little plan, he feels useless. He’s entranced, though, so he doesn’t mind one bit. At least he’s not as clueless as Gareth.

“Of course it does, you fucking idiot,” Malfoy whispers under his breath as he stretches his arms above his head, groans as he pulls at a kink in his shoulder. Harry snorts, tries less successfully to cover it up with a sniff and a rub at his nose.

From somewhere within his robes, Gareth pulls out a small, metal box from which he produces a cigarette. As if reading his mind, Malfoy saunters to him and lights it with his wand. Gareth lets his walking stick drop to the floor so he can hold the cigarette with one hand and touch the side of Malfoy’s thigh with the other. It’s just gotten weird again, Harry decides. Malfoy twirls out of his grip, but no disappointment crosses Gareth’s face. He thinks he’s being teased. Gareth looks at Harry for the first time in several minutes, which is unfortunate, but Harry can relate. It’s not as if he hasn’t been enraptured by Malfoy, too.

“Why don’t you get comfortable, my beautiful boys?” — _‘Good grief,’_ whispers Malfoy — “It’s not right of me to sit while you’re both still standing.” Gareth puffs on his cigarette. Harry grimaces, hoping it’s not terribly plain to see in the dimly lit room. He glances at Malfoy in hopes that he’ll intervene.

“Oh, Gareth, you know I would,” Malfoy purrs. “But this bed isn’t really _mine_. It belongs to whoever will take this home off my hands.” Harry’s brows leap under his fringe when he feels Malfoy’s palm slide up his arm slowly, the drag of soft skin against rough fabric audible in the quiet room, until his fingers reach his shoulder and curl around it. They dig in insistently. Harry’s arm feels as if it’s burning, and the warmth is emanating throughout the rest of his body, weakening his resolve to play along and heightening his need to just Apparate home, whisk Malfoy off right then, away from Gareth’s predatory gaze. Malfoy’s holding onto him. It would be easy enough. “And yet, despite all my work, despite the house itself being practically a piece of art, I can’t seem to find a buyer who’s both wealthy enough and in the market for a home of this scale of grandeur…”

“I’ll take it off your hands,” Gareth says without a second thought.

Harry and Malfoy twitch in sync, but Malfoy’s much better at hiding his shock. “You _will_?” Malfoy breathes, like a swooning damsel. “Oh, perfect. You’ll take it off my hands, Gareth. Perfect. Well, then, if you insist — come on, Potter.” Malfoy doesn’t let go of Harry, but he jostles him as he moves, and it’s only once Malfoy’s hopped up onto the edge of the bed and dragged Harry in between his legs does Harry — albeit very slowly — begin to catch on. Malfoy’s fingers remain bruising against his shoulder, and to return the touch, because he realizes he’s now allowed to, Harry snakes his hands onto Malfoy’s thighs. He likes this, it seems, because his cheeks flood with warmth as if he’s not expecting it but is happy for it nonetheless. Harry thinks that he very, very much likes seeing that look. And he should be very, very concerned, because he shouldn’t really-really-care about anything because Harry Potter _doesn’t_ really-really-care about anything, but then Malfoy drags his hands over the scruff on Harry’s jaw, clutches at his jawbone with intent, and whispers, “Let’s give him a show, shall we, Potter?”

Harry’s exhale is a trembling one, but he doesn’t move because Malfoy’s hold on him is firm, his gaze making Harry’s lips tingle, untouched but with memories. His own memories. When Malfoy presses in, he reciprocates instantly, and their tongues swipe together without hesitation. Gareth emits a strangled noise from behind Harry’s back, and they share a private laugh that’s all warm breath between each other’s mouths. Harry tries, tries desperately to memorize what he’d craved from Malfoy when he’d risen from Harry’s cubicle floor on Monday, when he’d laughed with him in the elevator about the pervert just ten feet away from them, when… just all the fucking time. Malfoy’s nose bumps his glasses and he feels his lips go taut, which means he’s smiling again, Harry’s made him smile, even if by accident, and Malfoy’s lips drag away from his to brush against his prickly jaw. And then it’s all over, because Gareth makes a second noise, but it’s not so much a wheeze as a snore, because it is a snore.

Malfoy's lips pop from his skin with a wet noise that makes Harry’s chest claw outward with longing, and he’s only partially soothed by the adorably smug “Ha!” Malfoy makes as he releases Harry’s jaw and slides off the bed. The solidness of his thighs is gone, and Harry’s fingers grasp at air. “It’s the whisky. Puts him right to sleep,” Malfoy explains. Harry’s yet to even turn around, still licking the taste of Malfoy from his lips, that slightly dank, sour taste at the back of one’s throat after smoking. Harry decides it tastes much better on Malfoy than himself. He wants to be mad, because it’s not bloody fair that Malfoy can wind him up like _this_ and just let him go like _that_ , but a second thought proves that it’s perfectly fair. Malfoy goes for it, Harry opens up for him and lets him in and melts for him, and then Malfoy retreats, because he doesn’t owe Harry anything. All in good fun. That’s all it is. Good fun. “Somebody’s gonna have a sad case of blue balls in the morning.” Harry turns and leans against the bed, trying to wrap his head around everything Malfoy had just orchestrated. He watches him poke at Gareth’s shoulder, shrug mindlessly when he doesn’t stir, and then unsheathe his wand to Conjure a jingling keyring that he drops onto Gareth’s lap. Malfoy glances at Harry over his shoulder, smiles faintly. “He’ll pay me when he comes to and remembers,” he explains, and then brings a hand to his mouth as he yawns. “Mm. Tired. Home, Potter?” He’s too pleased with himself, or then too tired, to understand how those words make Harry ache.

*** 

“It’s fine. Go about your little... _bro_ chat. Just pretend as if I’m not here.”

Ron snorts loudly into a lengthy sip of beer. “Did you just tell Harry to pretend you’re not here? Impossible,” he mutters, earning an elbow to the ribs from Harry that makes him yowl. It’s not above the noise level at the Leaky, though.

Ron’s expression when Harry had strolled into the Leaky Cauldron with Malfoy in tow had been almost comical. By no means are they friends, Ron and Malfoy, but from forced proximity in the Auror Headquarters a tentative acquaintanceship is naturally born. That is, whenever Malfoy decides to employ ‘Weasel’ as a manner of addressing Ron in passing conversation — _“A memo for you, Weasel, from the trainee who’s too scared to give it to you herself. Merlin knows why, you’ve got the intimidation factor of a flobberworm.”_ — Ron replies good-naturedly, for the most part — _“Thanks, Ferret. By the way, I know you never did produce a Patronus back in school, but the next time you decide to, let me know, ‘cos I’m putting twenty galleons on yours being an actual flobberworm.”_ So Ron hadn’t protested when they’d sat down with him in his booth, but he _had_ protested, with reluctance but also mild guilt, when Malfoy had offered to fuck off to a table in the corner. And, in a way, Malfoy was in the same position as Harry when it came down to the topic of discussion, so his presence isn’t completely out of line.

Harry remains befuddled after last night — Hermione’s _ADAMC_ banquet. After Malfoy snogged him for three minutes, tossed the keys into a passed-the-fuck-out Gareth’s lap, they’d both Apparated to Grimmauld Place, where Malfoy had bid him his usual, cordial good night and marched up the stairs to allow Iggy and Tilly to prepare him for bed. The morning after hadn’t been an entirely cold reception, like those that had followed their regrettable (on Malfoy’s side) fumbles. He’d smiled coolly at Harry and held onto his arm before they’d left for the Offices. Harry worries, almost, that he doesn’t know where this leaves them, before he realizes he should be far less concerned about randomly snogging Malfoy than shagging him at work. Or should he? Malfoy could like kissing him, just because he likes kissing, as it’s far less probable that he just likes Harry. Could Malfoy just like blowing him? Harry hasn’t ever particularly enjoyed sucking dick, other than for the very reason that it makes the receiver feel good. He could imagine he’d like to do it for someone he likes. Like Malfoy. But Malfoy doesn’t like him. That would be projecting. And there’s also the whole _‘I still don’t like you, Potter’_ thing.

Harry isn’t positive when he decided he liked Malfoy, either. He supposes that naturally stems from wanting to shag his brains out all the time with the added discovery that he wouldn’t mind kissing him or holding him the way he had when they’d fallen asleep together in Malfoy’s bed. It’s not to say that Malfoy isn’t a git, because he is. He’s still a picky, privileged ponce despite his troubles. He’s always in Harry’s way at home and at work, face pinched in contempt, expecting the worst and the very lowest from Harry no matter what he tries. It’s also unlucky for Harry that Malfoy is so good with his words. He has the ability to string up an insult that Harry might not fully comprehend for minutes or hours or days, at which point it’d be too late to be cross and he’d just be forced to laugh in surrender.

Worst of all, Malfoy loved — or loves — Zabini, which just rubs Harry wrong, because _why_?

Git. Yes. And if Harry ruminates on what the first words that come to mind are when he thinks of Malfoy — after he’s shuffled through those at the very top of the pile, i.e. _fit as fuck, those lovely fucking noises he makes when he comes, that devious, knee-weakening smirk when he thinks he’s right (which is always)_ — he would find those words to describe how Harry had always perceived Malfoy at Hogwarts. _Privileged ponce_ , which remains true. _An arsehole to his friends because of their blood or economic status_ , less so. Not anymore, at least. Harry’s still mindboggled by the way Malfoy had so connivingly swayed Gareth in favor of Hermione’s proposal. Was it out of the good nature of his heart? Probably not. But was he trying to prove something? To Harry, of all people? That’s even less likely. Malfoy doesn’t give a shit what Harry thinks of him. Moments after that, he’d swindled Gareth into buying the ridiculous home from him, so he’s fine with Harry viewing him as a flirtatious, seductive con-artist.

Harry’s fine with it, too.

But this just makes the former option more likely.

“Fuck,” Harry whispers, staring into his coincidentally empty pint glass. His expletive interrupts Ron and Malfoy’s combative back-and-forth about Chudley’s success last season. Both of them glance at him and Ron smiles.

“Not to worry, mate. I’ll get another round.” He’s off toward the bar, a skip in his step. Despite his initial reservations about Malfoy that evening, Ron has been in a frighteningly good mood. Harry suspects Hermione has been, too, after the prior night’s progress with Gareth, and that he’s been feeding off her joy the way he always does.

Malfoy kicks his ankle under the table. “Would you just bring up what you came here to talk about? I could argue with Weasley for hours, Potter, but that doesn’t mean I want to.” He’s very close — it’s just him and Harry on the bench across from Ron’s in their cozy booth.

Harry sighs. He doesn’t have a chance to respond before Ron is giddily trudging back with a pint for each of them. The glasses clink and slosh a bit onto the sticky wood as he sets them down. Ron slides in opposite them, very quickly notes the grim look on Harry’s face, and exhales.

“Guess we oughta talk,” Ron mutters, rubbing his hand against the bridge of his nose. He eyes Malfoy warily, and Malfoy just squints back.

“Have you... thought ‘bout what you’re gonna say?” Harry asks. “To Hermione?”

Malfoy scoffs, holds up a palm directly in front of Harry’s face as if to silence him. “You’re jumping too far ahead, Potter,” he says dismissively, then fixes his eyes on Ron. “You can’t think about what you’re going to say to her before you understand your own intentions. Before you understand what you want.” He pauses, looks briefly down at the table, and then scoots against the bench to sit up further. He bites his lip, like he’s mulling over the words to follow, and eventually laces his fingers together and refocuses on Ron. “Pansy... Pansy is quite fond of you. And she’s very good at acting like she doesn’t care, but I believe, on some level, she may want more than just the occasional, casual shag from you. I’m not saying you should leave Granger and take her up on it, because first of all, Pansy won’t admit to it, and second of all, I don’t know how you feel about either of them, but I... I just think it’s something you should know. Be aware of.” He clears his throat and reaches for his first pint, which is still half-full despite the new one Ron’s got lined up for him.

Ron’s jaw is slightly ajar, but he closes his mouth after considering Malfoy’s words. “Yeah.” He meets Harry’s eyes and sighs yet again. “I... I mean. I love Hermione. I love her more than bloody anything. Always imagined it’d just be us — and you, too, Harry — not you, though, Malfoy — but, like, in the end, me and her would be forever.”

“She and I,” Malfoy mutters.

“Not you, Malfoy, goddammit. _Me_ and her.”

“Not my point, Weasley —“

“Anyway. I love her. And I know she’s stressed about shit so she’s been moody lately, and I don’t always know how to deal with her emotions, ‘cos I think she kinda just expects me to stay out of her way, let her deal with ‘em.” He takes a long drag from his pint. “So... we haven’t had sex for three months.” He says it like it’s groundbreaking news, expecting some sort of hysterical reaction. Both Harry and Malfoy just watch him. Harry’s suddenly a bit more aware of Malfoy’s proximity, as if he wasn’t before.

“Cry me a river, Weasel,” says Malfoy.

Ron makes a face at him. “Bet that’s not weird to you, Ferret, since I’m sure you never get any.” His eyes shift to Harry. “But, like, Harry, you have Danica. And whoever else. I can’t always keep track.”

Harry chokes a bit on his gulp of beer.

“Alright, Potter?” Malfoy asks lightly, smile wicked, fingers laced together beneath his chin.

Harry means to kick him under the table, but he misses, and he only ends up gluing his and Malfoy’s knees together between them. Malfoy scoffs, but he doesn’t move away, so Harry doesn’t either.

“And Parkinson — Pansy… I always just thought… I just always thought she bloody hated me. I mean — she _does_ , like, there’s stuff I do that drives her mad, that she’ll never stop yakking on about, telling me how much she hates me and how dim I am, but.” It’s the slow smirk that comes to Ron’s face that scares Harry the most. The whole predicament would’ve been so much easier to sort out if Ron could’ve confessed that Pansy had been a big, drunken mistake, that he regretted it and that he loved Hermione and no one else. “But. Then. _Whew_.” Ron chuckles and takes a sip from his pint. “At the wedding, it was… damn. I feel like it made it better, y’know? Like… There was so much… _feeling_. I was like, ‘holy shit, she fuckin’ hates me, but she also really likes me, and this is bloody amazing. Like — it’s sex on a whole new level. In a different dimension.’” He’s still trying to suppress a mad smile as he glances across the table at the pair. Harry peers at Ron through the cracks between his fingers, his face against his hands. It’s Malfoy’s turn to be at peak discomfort, his leg still warm against Harry’s even if his spine is rigid. Ron’s smile slips.

“If Pansy was — _available_ , you’d do it again?” Harry asks. “Be honest.”

There’s only a second before Ron looks shamefully down at the table. “Yeah.”

“And if you weren’t already with Hermione, and Pansy wanted more than to just —“ Harry struggles to find a way to phrase it that doesn’t make him want to vomit on the spot. “— _be available_ for you, would you consider — it?” He clears his throat, rubs at his rough jaw. “Dating her?”

Ron’s drags his teeth over his lower lip, making it go as white as the skin around it. “I know you’re judging me, Harry, and that’s fine, and all, ‘cos I’m judging myself, but. Yeah.”

Harry nods. He falls into silence. Ron had been disappointed when he and Ginny had fallen out of love, out of what was supposed to be a relationship that would bind Harry to the Weasleys forever (until he’d recovered and taken to laughing about it and hiding porn in Harry’s desk). Harry thinks he knows how he might feel now. But he also thinks this is worse. Harry, Ron, Hermione. It’d been them, and only them, since first year. And if a rift forms between Hermione and Ron romantically because of this, this _shit_ , he can’t rest assured they’ll get back together, or even remain friends. The longer Harry ponders, the uneasier Ron gets.

“Potter, you’re fucking terrible at this. Right, Weasley, here’s what you need to do,” Malfoy harangues. “You have to tell Granger, like _yesterday_. She’ll probably scream and cry and throw things or hex you or even kill you, yes, but she has the right. Let her. Don’t make excuses for yourself, don’t blame it on her _emotions_ , like you so chauvinistically did just now, don’t give her the _it’s not you, it’s me_ sermon, because she won’t believe you. She’s going to hate herself almost as much as she hates you. And it’s terrible, it’s fucking awful, but it’s going to happen, even if she’s strong, which she is. Granger, she’s… she’s a bloody perfectionist, Weasley, and you know this even better than I do. She’s going to try and nitpick every flaw in herself, in the way she walks and talks and looks. Tell her the truth. Apologize, but don’t overdo it, because it’s likely it won’t change anything. Saying ‘sorry’ over and over won’t make her feel any better. She might try to leave so she can have space, but don’t let her. You must be the one to leave, to find somewhere else to stay. And if she incurs a bout of temporary insanity and wants you to stay, if she blames herself so much she forgives you, don’t let her. You feel something for Pansy, you miserable bastard, and if you let her take you back only to fuck her over again because you can’t control yourself around Pansy Parkinson and her sheer tops and stiletto heels, you’re…” Harry looks up. Malfoy looks tired, his palms wrapped around the dregs of his first pint which must have gone warm by now. Ron watches him, too, not nearly as startled as Harry had expected him to be.

“You reckon we should take a break, then?” Ron asks cautiously. When Malfoy doesn’t respond, Harry puts a light pressure against him where their legs touch, and Ron says, “Malfoy?”

Malfoy nods faintly. “Yes,” he says, very quiet.

“And what about Parkinson?”

Malfoy gives Ron a sharp look. “Don’t fuck her.” His pointy nose wrinkles. “It’s not like you can avoid her. But don’t fuck her, not until you’ve had a chance to think.”

Ron drains the rest of his pint, nodding himself for a while in an absentminded way. “Yeah. You’re right. Thanks, Malfoy. And Harry. You, too.”

Harry smiles sympathetically, but it feels contrived.

“You’re a mess, Weasel,” Malfoy grumbles. He turns against the bench so his body angles toward Harry, one knee tucked up under himself. Both of his knobby knees dig into the side of Harry’s thigh.

Ron chuckles dryly. “Weird, isn’t it? Oh, how the tables’ve turned. Harry’s living the good life, and I’m the one with the drama.”


	15. Chapter 15

Harry’s friends are incompetent buffoons when it comes to conflict resolution.

Hermione stops by the Auror Headquarters on Monday morning to drop off Ron’s forgotten bagged lunch in person, to say hello even if she’d last seen him an hour ago, and to frowningly charm his wrinkled t-shirt to lay flat against his chest. She sits on Harry’s desk while he takes his coffee break and plays with a loose thread on her gingham jumper as she gushes about the official Ministry stamp of approval she’d received that morning about moving forward with the integration of the goblins’ union into the Association for the Defense and Advocacy of Magical Creatures. She thanks Harry excessively for taking the time to talk to Gareth, and Harry tells her that if it was anyone other than Hermione who’d convinced Gareth to push forward, it’d been Malfoy. Before Hermione leaves — she has important meetings with this and that goblin — she hugs Malfoy so tightly his eyes seem to bulge out of his head.

Whilst casually chatting to Creasey and most likely ignoring his every word, Pansy sips from a paper cup of water and leans against Clem’s cubicle, watching the ongoings — mainly the interactions between Hermione and the respective Ron and Malfoy — with a look of visceral disdain, red nails and lips stark against the white of her face and the paper cup.

If Hermione knew, Harry would know, as Ron would have stepped through the Floo into Harry’s living room at Grimmauld Place, sheepishly in search of a bed on which to spend the night. But as it is, she knows nothing.

A paper cup issuing steam from the hole in its lid floats onto Harry’s desk. He glances up from his reading — applications for the next round of incoming Auror trainees — and lifts an eyebrow at it. The cup is followed shortly by Malfoy, who strides up to his desk. He’s looking down at a pad of parchment in his one hand, appearing as if he possesses his own magnetic field for memos at the sheer amount of them floating about behind him. He does nothing but scribble onto his pad, a foot away from Harry’s desk… ignoring him.

Harry clears his throat. Several seconds pass before Malfoy looks up. Harry flashes him a smile, which Malfoy does not return. “This for me?” he asks despite the lack of a reaction, jutting his chin toward the cup of coffee.

“Is what?” Malfoy mutters, and then his eyes follow Harry’s chin’s path to the coffee. “Oh! No, of course not. That’s mine. I just didn’t want to spill it. It isn’t that I’m incapable of stably levitating a number of objects simultaneously, but it never hurts to be careful.”

Harry huffs out a chuckle, because he’s not an ounce surprised. He leans back in his chair, folds his arms behind his head and spins around toward Malfoy. “And what would you do if I asked _you_ to get me a coffee?”

Malfoy’s eyes are back on his parchment pad. “I’d upend mine over your head, and then go get myself another.” Because that makes sense.

Harry waits, but Malfoy says nothing else, just stands there in silence, looking awfully tempting in that cobalt-blue jumper that covers too much of his neck for Harry’s liking. Then he clears his throat and drops his hands to his thighs with a loud clap. “What do you want, Malfoy?”

Malfoy’s brows crease and he lowers his notepad again. “Noth — ah, there is something. I wouldn’t come speak to you without a purpose, Potter.” He pulls his wand from his pocket and flicks it at Harry, and a piece of purple parchment from Malfoy’s army, folded into an origami plane more intricately than Harry’s ever seen, comes zooming at him and jabs him in the chest, after which it falls inanimately to his lap. Harry unfolds it. “You have a meeting with the Head Auror in an hour to discuss the applications for the Training Programme,” Malfoy eyes his desk and smiles snidely, “Which I can see you’ve not finished reviewing.”

Harry frowns and folds his arms over the applications on his desk. It doesn’t obscure them much. “I’m double-checking,” he lies.

“Certainly.” Malfoy reaches over and daintily plucks up his coffee from beside Harry’s arm, fingers brushing his bicep in a way that’s too heavy-handed to not have been deliberate. Malfoy smiles faintly at a trainee who walks by and greets him, taking a sip from his coffee, and otherwise not moving. He continues to stand there, leaning into his hip and clutching his notepad and drinking his coffee, as if his job description is to distract Harry Potter.

Harry watches Malfoy, just to indulge him, drumming his fingers against his lips before he tries to school his smile into neutrality. “Anything else I can do for you?”

Malfoy Vanishes his coffee and clears his throat, not meeting Harry’s eyes as he hugs the parchment pad to his tummy. With that grace Harry’s always — in the last month — admired, he settles his free hand against his hip. “Since you’re just double-checking,” he starts quietly, “And you’ve an hour until your next scheduled obligation.” Malfoy finally looks at him, the very faintest quirk to his lips. “I don’t know, Potter. I simply thought you might want...”

By the time Harry’s sure he’s not being made a fool of, because Malfoy hasn’t yet burst into laughter and pointed a mocking finger at him, his throat is so dry he coughs when he tries to get a word out. “I want,” he practically rasps, rising from his chair. “Er, I want. I do want.”

Given the verbal confirmation, Malfoy is considerably more at ease. “Right,” he mumbles, eyes fixed on Harry’s as he smiles fully. He seems to not breathe for a moment, though, before he gestures with his wand in the direction of his desk and his army of parchment planes flock in a neat formation to pile upon it. He looks about fleetingly, then takes Harry’s hand, a brush of dry skin on dry skin, only to release it as he turns and strides away. The best course of action, Harry hopes, is to follow.

“Just getting a coffee,” he says to no one in particular, and, hence, no one pays attention except Malfoy, of course, who shoots him a glare over his shoulder from a safe distance up ahead. Malfoy disappears around the corner and into the hall, and Harry is quick on his heels as Malfoy taps the door to a storeroom with his wand, which opens upon recognition. Harry does the same when he reaches it, stepping into the cold, dark room. It’s nothing but shelves and shelves of immaculately labeled boxes, but his vision goes pitch black when the door fully shuts behind him. Harry opens his mouth to speak, but then there are warm palms dragging up his chest, his neck, and then tangling into his hair. He should be concerned, really, that it isn’t Malfoy, given that a number of people would jump on the opportunity to snog the Boy Who Lived in a dark closet, but Harry knows him too well by now, which is a strange thought. Long, bony fingers, the aroma of coffee on his tongue that he trails from Harry’s lower to upper lip that Harry presses in close to taste, the jut of his shoulder blades like delicate angel wings under Harry’s hands as he draws him in. He’s not sure where the wall is, but he finds out when Malfoy’s weight pushes him up against it, thumbs tracing the corners of Harry’s jaw and kissing him deep and messy and wet. Harry can feel the gentle air against his cheek as Malfoy breathes in, breathes out through his nose, and every sensation is magnified times ten, because not being able to see Malfoy hones his senses to the way he smells and feels and tastes — the skin on the small of his back where Harry’s rucked up his jumper slightly damp with apprehensive sweat, the clean, laundered smell of Malfoy’s jumper on his shoulder brushing against Harry’s nose when Malfoy arches over to kiss his chin, all long his jaw, his neck. Harry sighs shakily, takes the liberty of unbuckling Malfoy’s belt and popping the button on his trousers to precipitously slide his hand down the soft, downy hairs on Malfoy’s lower stomach and down into his pants, taking hold of his cock at the base. He’s never appreciated his own spontaneity more than when Malfoy, out of nowhere, keens softly against his ear, his bony arms hugging Harry’s shoulders so tight they’re chest to chest but for where Harry jerks him off, slow and lazy.

Harry swears that Malfoy’s on-and-off switch is too easy to trigger, like a bloody motion-detecting charm. There’s a noise from the very depths of the storeroom, and then another, like someone’s pushing boxes off the shelves, and Malfoy gasps audibly, stumbling so many steps far back from Harry that he can’t feel or see him anymore. Harry frowns, listens to Malfoy do up his trousers, then hears him whisper, _“Lumos,”_ under his breath, setting off a glow from the tip of his wand that makes the glazed sheens of sweat across both their foreheads only more obvious. Malfoy digs his wand into the middle of Harry’s chest so the light is muted. Harry wrinkles his nose.

“Shut up and don’t move, Potter,” Malfoy breathes and Harry nods rapidly. Malfoy narrows his eyes at Harry before traipsing off toward the back of the storeroom, and hell, Harry’s the Auror, shouldn’t he be the one investigating? He doesn’t dare disobey Malfoy’s orders, though. Malfoy and his little ball of white light disappears between two shelves, and a lapse of silence follows, only to be broken by three concurrent screams — one a hoarse, bass shout, another a high-pitched screech, and the third distinctly Malfoy’s. Harry takes a few steps forward.

“Draco, what the fuck?” Harry hears Pansy squawk. It echoes against the high ceilings of the storeroom. “What the fuck? Leave! Get _out_!”

“I was just — I needed extra quills and — Weasley, I cannot _believe_ how — Salazar, I need to go _Scourgify_ my pupils, how the fuck is this happening again —“ Harry can only assume he’s given a dirty look by Pansy. Something else falls and scatters across the concrete floor. “— Good grief, I’m leaving, I’m leaving. If I wanted a show, you two would be my last choice.” The glow of Malfoy’s wand grows stronger as he hastily reappears from between the shelves, his cheeks pink in the weak light, gesturing madly at Harry to _fucking utilize the rotating contraption beside you called a door, Potter_. They stumble out of the storeroom, only because Malfoy’s shoving Harry faster than he can move, and in the hallway, Harry turns to face him, bewildered, as Malfoy extinguishes his wand.

“Was that really —“

“Yes.” Malfoy stiffly pockets his wand, meeting Harry’s eyes grimly. “Some one-track mind the Weasel’s got. Why we bothered to try to help him, I’m not sure.” Harry can’t help it if he feels his stomach do a somersault when Malfoy refers to them as a ‘we,’ as a unit. “He’s hopeless. Beyond repair. I’ve always thought his skull was just full of hot air, but now I can see that there’s nothing. Not even oxygen. No lifeforms could survive in there, much less a complex organ like the human brain.” He leans against the wall, arms folded over his chest, _pouting_.

When Harry absently touches Malfoy’s hip to give it a squeeze, Malfoy doesn’t pull back. He does glance both ways down the hall, but the coast is clear, apparently, because he goes back to sulking without a care. “I’m sorry you had to see that,” Harry murmurs. He should be upset, disappointed in Ron, which he _is_ , but everything is on the back burner nowadays if Malfoy is concerned, isn’t it? So, instead, he feels a faint smile tug at his lips.

“Me, too.” Malfoy breathes out deeply, hands now linked behind his back and trapped between his back and the wall he’s up against. Then his jaw drops a bit and he squints at Harry, a smile playing at his twitching lips, and those hands enter Harry’s line of sight just to shove him back by his shoulders. “Oh, shut up, Potter. You’re just glad it wasn’t you.”

Harry holds his hands up innocently but lets himself pliantly stumble a few steps back. He smirks at Malfoy, batting his lashes quickly. “I didn’t say a word.”

“No, but your face did.” Malfoy twirls his finger in a circle just in front of Harry’s nose. “All of _this_ did.”

Harry’s eyes follow Malfoy’s fingertip until he feels dizzy. “What’s _this_ saying now, then?” Harry will never know the answer to that question, because Malfoy fists him by the front of his shirt and presses him to the wall, delivering what ends up being a short, dry peck to the lips followed by a gentle bite to his lower one. He hadn’t even checked for hallway traffic that time. Harry chuckles silently, disbelieving. Malfoy steps back and disregards him, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand and straightening out his jumper.

“Right. I need to go see a Mind Healer, possibly scrape out my brain matter after the trauma I’ve incurred. Admittedly, it did cool me off somewhat, Pansy and — and Weasley.” Malfoy’s eyes flicker over Harry before he twirls in place to face the direction of the cubicles. “And go wash your hands, Potter.” Harry catches a hint of a smile before Malfoy’s off, his hands primly linked behind his back. His hair isn’t quite as tidy as it’d been half an hour ago, but Harry thinks it’d only be noticeable to the individual who’d so artfully messed it up.

He takes all the credit.

*** 

When Harry strolls into his living room with a cup of tea in hand, Malfoy is sat at the piano, absentmindedly fingering a soft, tinkling melody that Harry doesn’t recognize. His jumper, fluffy and gray and white-striped, hugs his torso and the breadth of his shoulders, and Harry thinks he’s never liked stripes more, not even on his Gryffindor scarf. It’s nearing five-thirty in the evening, and Harry knows that Malfoy dines at precisely six-fifteen like clockwork. There’s a method to Harry’s madness, he swears. When he approaches Malfoy, he sees that he isn’t, in fact, reading music, but instead examining the _Wiltshire Times_. Harry brings his tea to his lips to take a sip and raises an eyebrow, but Malfoy doesn’t spare him a look until it seems that Harry has to beg for his attention — or feel like he has to, at least. Harry clears his throat.

Malfoy sighs, and one of his hands remains on the piano keys as the other reaches for his wand and magicks the newspaper to turn to the following page with a quiet rustle of pages. “Is this revenge for my idling at your desk earlier?” he mutters, but his gaze is glued to the newspaper. If anything, he’s even less interested in Harry now that he’s noticed him, and he squints and leans in closer to the paper.

Harry leans against the piano, sets his mug against its lacquered surface. Malfoy picks up his wand again without letting the melody waver and directs it at Harry’s mug so a coaster appears beneath it. Even Harry doesn’t show so much care for his own housewares. “ _No_ ,” he says with the intention of drawing a quizzical look from Malfoy, but he doesn’t so much as flinch. The soft music continues to fill Harry’s ears. “No. I just — well, I just wanted to let you know that there’s no food left in the house. For tonight. For dinner.” He picks at one of his nails and stares at Malfoy. He won’t be scared off so easily.

Malfoy snorts. “Yeah, alright, Potter. _Absolutely none_. Iggy and Tilly made crêpes this morning as well as their own ice cream. I suppose that was all out of thin air, wasn’t it?”

“Well, whatever they did, they’ve used everything up. I’ve — we’ve got nothing lying around. Not even chopped liver.”

“You can’t be serious.” Malfoy glances up at him fleetingly. “On second thought, I suppose you can be. I should have suspected, merely based on your media reputation, that you’re terrible at being an adult and completing tasks as simple as feeding yourself.”

Harry scoffs, because this conversation is not veering in the direction he’d intended. “My _media_ reputation?”

“Not to worry, though, Potter. Iggy can pop over to the Manor. It’s been deserted for weeks, but our pantry should still be restocked biweekly by the grocers.”

“Er — no. He can’t do that. I’ve closed my Floo for the night.”

Malfoy practically glares at him that time. “Well, why have you done that?” he huffs, before shaking his head and gesturing with his wand again to flip the newspaper. “Not that it matters. Iggy doesn’t need the Floo. He can just App —“

“Iggy’s busy. H-helping Kreacher clean the cellar.” Harry blinks, pinches at his lower lip. It’s not his worst excuse ever. Not his best, either.

“Tilly, then.”

“She’s helping them, too.”

Malfoy’s composure disappears into thin air and the music halts abruptly because he’s placed his hands onto his hips. “Tilly!” he calls, and there’s something of a _zap_ as she appears directly at Draco’s side. She’s holding a cleaning rag in one hand.

“Yes, young Master?” she chirps.

Malfoy licks his lips, drags his gaze pointedly from Harry to the elf. “What are you doing at the moment?”

“Sir Potter’s cellar is very, very dirty. We’s been cleaning —“

“And you and Iggy have collectively decided that tonight, for the first time in many, many years, that supper is of no importance?”

Tilly looks uneasily at Harry, wringing the rag between her hands. “W-well, you see, young Master, we’s…” She struggles for a moment, and Harry shakes his head in an attempt to be both stern and subtle but only feels like he’s given himself whiplash. Tilly crumbles anyway. She proceeds to squeak, “Sir Potter said —!” but Harry’s skidded to his knees on the floor with a hand to cover her mouth before she can finish the thought.

“I said the cellar’s dirty,” Harry supplies, breathing deeply. Malfoy’s gaze is fiery and critical and he’s likely withholding a comment about the way Harry’s going to wear holes into his jeans with this sort of horseplay. “And — and I said there’s no food. So we should go to dinner. Out. _Out_ to dinner. You and I, I mean, Malfoy. It’s getting late, and I’ve got nothing, and…” Harry and Tilly exchange a look as Malfoy eyes them with his white brows in a furrow until finally the piano bench screeches along the floor.

“Fine. You shall bear the burden of choosing where, Potter, though I have one demand. I’d like for there to be tablecloths. Damn the establishments that expect me to rest my forearms against their sticky tables,” says Malfoy, sweeping past both Tilly and Harry on his way out of the living room. Harry stares at the doorway long after it’s empty. He releases Tilly, the poor thing, who’s been patiently breathing through her button nose as Harry cups her mouth, and he melts across the floor, arms above his head, eyes shut. Tilly begins to audibly panic with frantic breaths, but then Harry fist-pounds the air and grins up at her, nodding to himself slowly, very slowly, because he’s just asked Draco Malfoy to dinner. With him. Having resorted to desperation and trickery, however, means that Harry must confront the truth that Malfoy had not, in fact, leapt into his ready, strong, chivalrous arms and agreed to go on a _date_ with him.

“Potter, if I don’t have a meal in front of me by six-fifteen, I’m going to hurt you,” Malfoy warns threateningly from the next room over. His tone, aristocratic and a bit nasal and wholly toff, is to Harry like the sound of bluejays chirping on a summer day… or something. Perhaps more like the wind whistling in Harry’s ears as he zooms on a broom hundreds of feet in the air. He sighs, pushes himself up from the floor and onto his feet in one move, on his way toward the door when he bends over and squeezes Tilly by her bony shoulders.

“You’ve made Sir Potter very, very happy, Tilly,” he tells her softly.

She blushes, fingers curling into the rag in her hands. “Young Master is not seeming very happy,” Tilly says hesitantly, big, lavender eyes flickering toward the door. “But Sir Potter is being Tilly’s sixth favorite mortal, so Tilly is willing to trusts Sir Potter.”

Harry smiles humbly. Then, he blinks. “Sixth?”

*** 

Thai is a safe choice, Harry believes. It hasn’t quite the romantic, Lady and the Tramp cliché factor nor the tomato-sauce-superfluity of Italian, nor the pungent, oily factor of the curry house a few blocks away that has been the scene of many a half-drunken, midnight nosh post-Auror training for Harry and Ron. And at this particular restaurant, there are tablecloths. Harry wipes his brow in relief when he recalls this in the restaurant’s very doorway, where he thinks Malfoy could have vanished from his side had he done him wrong.

He hasn’t gone. Yet. He’s seated directly across from Harry, reading the menu, an untouched glass of Chardonnay before him that Harry had presumptively ordered for them both and vaguely regrets because it makes it glaringly obvious he’s trying much too hard and either Malfoy’s choosing not to notice or happens to be out-of-character tonight in that he’s completely oblivious. He’s still wearing the fuzzy, gray jumper he’d worn to Headquarters that day, his black, sweeping coat neatly folded and safely shrunken inside the pocket of Harry’s jeans, unbeknownst to Malfoy — the result of a _“Here, Potter, take this to the coat check,”_ when the restaurant very well had neither a coat check nor a coat rack — and his light eyelashes cast spidery shadows onto his cheeks in the dim light of the corner their table is intimately tucked into, a warm glow cast over them by the lights shining between the pebbles inside the aquarium wall, the steadiness of which quivers as iridescent fish swim past. Harry holds the menu, shifts his feet under the table, scours for an entrée that’s light on the garlic in the case that he gets lucky enough to snog Malfoy later that night. He’s nailed all the elements of a perfect date, really, except for the fact that it absolutely is not.

“What is tah-foo?” asks Malfoy from behind his menu. Harry lifts his eyes, leafs through the menu in search of the different language Malfoy is speaking, before he finds the vegetarian selection and snorts.

“Tofu. It’s… like…” Harry bits his lip, tries to recall his secondhand knowledge from Hermione’s brief vegan stint before she’d switched to focusing solely on fair trade foods. “Soybean curd?”

Malfoy looks at him, eyes wide, and frowns in that way that twists up his nose, as if he’s accused Harry of inventing the product himself. “Sally Slytherin, Muggles are so quirky,” he mutters, then shuts the menu and sets it down. “Order for me.” Malfoy rises from his chair and sets off wordlessly in the direction of the toilets, and Harry exhales deeply as he goes limp in his chair. He’s doing this wrong, he’s sure of it, he’s doing this all wrong, and he’s certain the horror had started snowballing the moment he’d asked Malfoy to dinner without explicitly mentioning the whole _date thing_. Malfoy is anything but ignorant, though, and it’s that minuscule molecule of promise that’s keeping Harry alive.

The waiter arrives to refill his water glass and take their orders. “Still waiting on your date?” he asks sympathetically, nodding toward the empty chair and full glass of wine on Malfoy’s side of the table. Harry doesn’t quite understand until he’s ordered two of the same dish and the waiter mutters, “Good on you for holding out hope,” but the waiter is gone before Harry can bark out, _“I’m not alone!”_ at his stupid back.

“I’m not alone,” he mutters to himself instead. A flash of blond and Malfoy’s sitting down in front of him, lacing his long fingers together on the table and pinning Harry with a condescending gaze Harry finds neither patronizing nor unattractive.

“Talking to yourself? Or that friendly water snake behind the glass?” Malfoy murmurs as he scoots his chair closer to the table. Harry watches his hands, wants to touch them, and it’s rather fucking hard to come up with a response that is both coherent and snarky when Malfoy’s four feet away from him, but then he realizes he isn’t cracking a joke as much as just pointing out the snake in the fish tank that’s practically got its nose plastered to the glass by Harry’s shoulder. It halts its intense, beady stare for a moment when a particularly bulbous fish swims by, one that resembles a piranha in stature, but trains its black eyes on Harry again once the fish has retreated. Harry glances at Malfoy, who’s watching him from behind steepled fingers, and fights back a smirk before he winks at the snake.

 _“Hello,”_ he tries. It’s been a while since his last opportunity to speak in Parseltongue.

 _“The strange creature communicates,”_ the sea snake says.

“What’s it saying?” Malfoy demands, pressing his palms flat onto the table and leaning further across. Harry sits lax in his chair, arms folded over his chest, and smiles at Malfoy, whose eyes narrow in response.

“Do you mind, Draco? We’re talking business,” Harry murmurs with a hint of Malfoy-esque drama as he tilts his head toward the snake. _“That I do.”_

“Don’t call me that,” Malfoy chides, and in his peripheral vision, Harry watches his white-blond head move back and forth as he looks between Harry and the snake. “And don’t be rude, Potter. I know you’re talking about me.”

Harry chuckles, licks his lower lip. _“He thinks we’re talking about him.”_

The snake turns its head minutely to regard Malfoy. _“What does? The white thing? It is unsavory.”_

“Ha!” Harry laughs, points a finger in Malfoy’s direction. “It doesn’t like you.”

Malfoy shoves at Harry’s forefinger just in time to make room for the waiter to set two steaming plates in front of them. Malfoy hardly looks down as he lays his napkin onto his lap and picks up his cutlery. Harry had chosen one of the few dishes with duck in it with the expectation that it would suit Malfoy’s eclectic tastes. While Harry’s shooting a smug look at the waiter, because he’s not fucking alone, Malfoy’s rambling, “I know the stories of your tragic cupboard childhood from Skeeter’s book about you, Granger, and the Weasel — not that I would ever read _The Trials, Tribulations, and Truths Behind the Triumphant Trio_ , just happened upon the reviews in the _Prophet_ — so I know that you were doubtless raised with little to no table manners, Potter.” After he’s cut himself a bite-size piece of duck and stabbed at it enthusiastically with his fork, Malfoy purses his lips. “Thus, I will momentarily bear the burden of educating you by telling you it’s impolite to choose to converse with reptiles over your dinner guests. And yes, I am your guest, because you’ll be paying for tonight’s dinner, simply because I would like the pleasure of watching you pay for something you could undoubtedly get for free in the Wizarding community.” It’s at moments like these that Harry has to pause with a forkful of vegetables to his mouth to digest the whirlwind of what’s issued from Malfoy’s mouth and determine whether he’s genuinely hurt, angry, or if he’s just fucking with Harry like he seems to be the great majority of the time. Malfoy sets down his utensils and lays his hands on the table like he’s ready to continue prattling on, but instead, his eyes wander past Harry and he clears his throat. “But I’ll excuse it. Because of the cupboard.” A smile pulls at the corners of his lips.

“How generous of you,” Harry mutters, and Malfoy’s hand is there again, perfectly read to take, delicate fingers and round knuckles and all, and Harry reaches for it the same moment that Malfoy goes to pick up his glass of wine with the very same hand. Harry’s hand retreats, goes straight to his hair, because where else would it go?

 _“The strange creature is not very good at ambushing its prey,”_ the snake hisses.

“Shut it, you,” Harry huffs, and Malfoy glances at him quizzically from behind his glass. Harry just chuckles. “The cupboard excuse was valid ten years ago, maybe, but not anymore. So I’m sorry, Draco —“

Malfoy mutters, “For fuck’s sake.”

“— For mistreating my dinner guest,” Harry finishes. He grins in a way that has Malfoy plucking at the ends of his immaculate fringe and looking down at the table. “You have my full attention.”

Malfoy seems to shake the bashfulness from his shoulders as he sets his glass down. “On second thought, Potter, I’ve never quite understood the custom of conversation at the dinner table. How one is expected to eat their meal _and_ chat without awkward gaps in conversation for chewing, unless one plans on speaking with food in their mouth which is another dinner table blunder Mother taught me young that you probably missed while in your cupboard. I just — I just don’t understand.”

Harry thinks that Malfoy’s given him plenty of time, just during his lecturing, to make it through about a quarter of his plate, and he’s swishing down a gulp of wine just as Malfoy’s quieting. “So, you don’t want my attention?” he asks, smile wry.

Malfoy takes up his utensils again. “No,” he says decidedly.

 _“Just you and me, mate,”_ Harry murmurs to the snake, still hovering close by. He’s satisfied when Malfoy has to hide what Harry thinks is a smile behind his napkin.

 _“I only mate with my own kind,”_ the snake says.

Even if Malfoy vows to be silent for the remainder of their meal, Harry tops off his glass regardless. Malfoy drinks his wine like he’s a child being served vegetables by an insistent parent. Harry thinks it’s adorable.

It’s well past six-fifteen by the time they’re finished and their plates are being collected, but Harry thinks Malfoy looks satisfied enough, an elbow on the table and his cheek against his hand. Harry would comment on the questionable manners of elbow-on-table, but he’s really not in the mood to start a fight, not when Malfoy’s cheeks are slightly flushed the way they are and his eyes are slightly sleepy around the corners but not tired. His hand is on the table again, and Harry damn well goes for it that time — with speed and intent, too — but Malfoy moves it to hand his empty plate to the waiter, because he chooses that moment to be friendly, of course. Harry’s hand smacks against the table, the noise muted by the tablecloth. Malfoy doesn’t notice. Harry leaves it there.

 _“The strange creature requires a lesson in stealth,”_ the sea snake comments.

Harry rolls his eyes to the aquarium. _“Maybe the piranha that’s after your arse can teach me.”_ That shuts it up.

Malfoy balls the sleeves of his sweater up in his fists and rests his chin upon them, looking on with satisfaction as Harry takes care of the bill with Muggle money. As Harry scribbles down his signature on the receipt, Malfoy coughs softly, so Harry looks up at him. “What?”

“Foreign, isn't it, to have your Savior hands touching something as dirty as money, Potter?” Malfoy asks, batting his eyes.

Harry could think of a thousand jokes employing the word ‘dirty’ that he could launch back at Malfoy, but instead he sets down the bill. “Contrary to popular belief — nah, not popular, just yours, Malfoy — I don’t actually let everyone give me free stuff,” he states, smiling faintly, then ponders for a moment. “Unless it’s got to do with Quidditch. One free broom-cleaning kit hurts no one.”

Malfoy snorts. “What a waste.” When he stands, Harry is quick to follow, and makes a show of excusing himself to go to the coat check — retreating briefly around a corner in the restaurant — just so he doesn’t have to bother explaining to Malfoy why his coat was getting wrinkly in Harry’s jeans pocket. When he returns with it in its original size, he holds it out to Malfoy, who doesn’t take it but goes about slipping his arm into one of the sleeves, which forces Harry to accommodate his silent request to be dressed and help Malfoy the rest of the way into his coat. It means he gets close enough for Harry to catch a whiff of expensive cologne, so he doesn’t complain. “Going to miss your friend?” Malfoy does up one button of his coat as he tilts his head toward the fish tank. In the water, the snake wiggles by the glass.

“We’re not friends,” Harry says as he shrugs into his own jacket. _It told me I lack in stealth_.

“Shame. You could use one more.” Malfoy’s arms sway at his sides absentmindedly as he wanders out of the restaurant ahead of Harry, who watches with suppressed amusement. “I hope your pantry is filled by tomorrow, Potter. Else I might just move back to the Manor. There’s nothing stopping me. Nothing stands in my way.”

That time, when the cold air of the night hits him as they make it outside, the pale of Malfoy’s hand stark against his coat, Harry reaches for his target and doesn’t miss. Malfoy’s on his way to the sidewalk when Harry’s fingers curl around his wrist and tug him backward toward the wall by the door to the restaurant. There’s a soft intake of breath, and Harry’s not sure from which of them it came, and though he’s vied for it for an hour now, he releases Malfoy’s arm to grip at his waist instead, the wool of his coat scratchy against his hands as he presses him into the wall with his own weight. Malfoy’s Adam’s apple bobs and he looks away from Harry.

“Kiss me,” Harry mutters. “Please.”

“No,” Malfoy says quietly, petulantly.

“Kiss me.” When Harry leans up onto his tiptoes, they’re eye to eye, though Malfoy tries very hard to seem distracted. “Kiss me, Draco, please.”

“No.” When Malfoy turns his head to look right instead of left, their noses brush and he’s forced to halt midway, sighing so the air from his nose warms Harry’s chin.

“Kiss me.”

“No,” Malfoy whispers. His hands, already cold with the evening chill or with poor circulation or with anemia — which Harry’s always suspected Malfoy of having, him and his snowy skin and blue veins — travel the distance between them to cup Harry’s cheeks almost desperately, thumbs pulling at his lower lip and nudging at his glasses with a sweet, juvenile annoyance, so that Harry’s smiling breathlessly by the time he speaks again.

“Why not?”

Harry has to grab the brick wall behind Malfoy to keep upright when their tongues and lips meet, and a Muggle, one in a large party exiting the restaurant and filing past, whistles lowly. Harry just breathes into Malfoy’s cheek when Malfoy draws back to flip them off and accompany the gesture with a glare, and it’s worth it when Malfoy nips at the side of his lip and chuckles into his mouth and steps on Harry’s toes when his lanky legs get shaky with what Harry thinks is the same numbing, sparking, buzzing sensation that’s rippling from the pit of his own stomach to the surface of his oversensitized skin. It’s wet and Malfoy tastes like Thai spice and the citrus of the wine and tongue and Harry truly believes he’s actually entered some sort of rapturous, transcendent state in which he’s floating, before him and his own weighty, bulky feelings and Malfoy are all squeezed through the tight vortex of Apparition.

Harry falls to his feet at the Apparition point inside of the Ministry. Malfoy is already halfway across the silent, empty Atrium, the echoes of his heel clicks resounding throughout. He’s shrugging out of his coat and striding toward the lifts. Harry jogs after him, puzzled, invigorated, overwhelmed, his heart thrumming unhealthily fast.

“Could’ve warned me,” Harry says as he slows to Malfoy’s pace, which still remains quicker than Harry’s walking speed because his legs are much, much too long. “We could’ve been splinched.” Malfoy glances at him only to dash into an awaiting lift. Harry follows. Obviously. When Malfoy lets go of his black coat, it Vanishes in midair halfway to the floor, and he grabs onto the hanging straps with both hands, facing Harry. Harry’s lucky he’s blindly mimicking Malfoy, because he would have collapsed to the floor with the momentum of the elevator shooting upward had he not also done so. “Why are we here?” He’s fairly aware why, but Malfoy’s cheeks are still a bit pink, and Harry wants to see them even pinker. There isn’t a soul around mind for the grumpy witch directing a cleaning cart with her wand who boards the lift after Malfoy and Harry step out on “Level two, Department of Magical Law Enforcement, including the Improper Use of Magic Office, Auror Headquarters, and Wizengamot Administration Services.”

Harry thinks back to a few days before, when he’d watched Malfoy’s back as he’d flounced off toward Headquarters, leaving Harry to idle post-kiss by the storeroom. Now he’s walking the very same hallway with the very same man past the very same storeroom, but Malfoy’s facing him, precariously taking backward step after backward step, his arms held out to the sides like he’s balancing on a tightrope. His gray jumper droops below the line of his collarbone, the collar seemingly stretched wider than it had been earlier in the evening, as if he’s been tugging at his jumper's hem under the edge of the table all night and Harry hadn’t noticed. Harry wonders just how late it’s getting as the distant hubbub of Aurors in the Canteen chugging coffees and socializing on uneventful nightshifts reverberates through the hall. Malfoy spins on the ball of his foot as he walks past cubicle after empty cubicle, fingers skimming their shoddy walls, the face of Lucius Malfoy on the bulletin board scowling at his son as he prances by. There’s no need to confer about their destination because Malfoy pushes Harry’s desk chair away and drops his arse onto Harry’s desk the same moment that Harry crowds in between his legs. Malfoy’s hands slip under his jacket and pull at the back of Harry’s ribcage so their chests align, warm and sturdy, hearts drumming in tandem. Harry feels like an idiot when he smiles against Malfoy’s mouth, and _Malfoy_ , who’s actively trying to kiss him, groans and mumbles, “Stop that,” into his lips, and it’s all breathing, heavy, warm breathing as Harry tugs his coat off and lets it fall to the floor, uses all his strength to hold Malfoy up against him with an arm beneath his bum as he attempts with his other hand to shove the important shit on his desk to the edges to make room. Malfoy latches onto his shoulders and tightens his knees around Harry’s waist and Harry doesn’t think he could get him to let go even if he tried, which is a blissful thought. As Harry’s eyes dart around his workspace, shuffling a thick folder of Auror trainee applications out of the way, Malfoy’s tongue drags up the side of his neck, and he’s just shaved that morning, so it’s all smooth on smooth as Malfoy sucks on his jaw and ghosts his mouth over Harry’s temple and goes to tug on his ear with his teeth without ever separating their faces more than a centimetre. When it’s safe, Harry lowers Malfoy back down to the desk, and they’re so in sync that their hands collide when Malfoy goes for the fly on Harry’s jeans and Harry for Malfoy’s, which prompts Malfoy to roll his eyes and plant his hands behind him on the desk, lean into them, _arch_ his back, make it easier for Harry to undo his trousers as Malfoy kicks off his shoes. When Harry grumbles, “Merlin, you’re so fucking fit,” Malfoy’s legs finally bare as Harry’s hands hungrily slip into his briefs to grab at his arse, Malfoy still doesn’t move his hands, but instead lifts his hips to rub up against Harry, holding his gaze with unreadable eyes. Harry — ruefully — takes one for the team and unhands Malfoy to unbutton his own jeans, which is infinitely more difficult when his glasses are steamy from Malfoy’s breathing, and to eventually push them down just past his arse, right as Malfoy reaches up to remove Harry’s glasses with a musical chuckle.

“You know, Potter, if the Aurors found out about this, they wouldn’t even think forging that letter from my mother was the worst thing I’ve done since the war,” Malfoy says. Harry doesn’t care what he’s saying unless it’s “Fuck me,” so he nearly ignores it, because that voice is thick with tipsiness and desire. But his brain catches up with his primal instincts and he presses his finger into the bridge of his glasses to keep them on his face. He stares at Malfoy, a flushed, beautiful, open-faced Malfoy his chest clenches nervously. Malfoy lowers his hands, licks his lips.

“Wait, you —“ Harry’s lips move for a second without making a sound. “That letter from your ‘mother.’” His brows crinkle, his hands hover in the air between them, grasping at nothing and then curling into fists. “The letter, the one about meeting up with you, the one you showed me, the letter that we catalogued as evidence.” He holds Malfoy’s gaze until Malfoy is the one to break it, perhaps only just perceiving the gravity of his confession. “It wasn’t real?”

Malfoy pulls at the hem of his jumper, shifting with a creak of the desk beneath him so his back is against the wall of Harry’s cubicle, which puts a negligible amount of extra space between them. “That’s not what I said,” he responds fiercely as his eyes flit back to Harry. “It was mostly real. I did receive a letter. It just wasn’t the one I gave to you.”

Harry steps backward. Malfoy’s calves fall away from him, dangling freely over the edge of his desk. His mind races. There’s anger, heating and boiling and inching closer to the surface, but he’s too confused to allow it to yet consume him. “How did you use the Gemino Curse undetected? They said — they said they could find no magical signature,” he breathes, arms dropping limply to his sides. It’s the first question that comes to his mind, though not the most important.

Malfoy sits up further, his lips twitching as if they must decide between scowling and playing it neutral. “Powerful magic, they said,” he says evenly. “House-elf magic. Iggy did it. On my orders, of course.”

Harry stares at him and, in an indignant bout, pulls his jeans back up. “Why?”

Malfoy’s face, no longer warmed to the tint of a pink rose petal at the apples of his cheeks, is splotchy with an uncomfortable red. He pushes himself off the desk, kneeling to grab his trousers. “I didn’t want to give you the original.”

“Why?” Harry hisses, more vicious this time. He turns toward Malfoy, grabs at his arm to hold him still, but Malfoy wrenches away from him before he can even get a steady hold.

“Because I changed it! I changed what it said!” Malfoy explodes, his eyes wide and bloodshot when they turn to Harry, pupils like empty holes in the low light of the Office. “I duplicated my mother’s handwriting. That’s it. Don’t get your wand into such a twist, Potter. Father is gravely ill, Mother is very worried, yadda yadda. That’s all it said, the original. That’s all it said.”

Harry glowers, jaw rigid. “Then why did you change it? Why did you curse it? Have Iggy curse it?” Malfoy doesn’t respond, too busy clothing himself and tugging on his shoes. “What did you think you were doing, tricking the Aurors into thinking you were in danger? You —“ Harry stares past Malfoy, feels lightheaded. “You sat through that entire meeting, knowing everything, not saying a word, bloody poker-faced while Corner and Goldstein were — they defended you. They came up with excuses, and you just ate them up, didn’t you?” Malfoy scrambles to pick up his misplaced wand from the floor, the clumsiest Harry’s ever seen him, and when he sets off, Harry, still with his fly undone, marches after him. “Malfoy, don’t fucking walk away.”

Malfoy turns, but like an antelope being closed in on by a pack of lions, he fidgets in place, face damp with sweat. Harry wonders if he’s not even trying or if he’s suddenly unable to affect his usual cool, indifferent air. “Shut up, Potter. It’s not important.”

“It’s falsified evidence, Malfoy. Of course it’s important.” Harry regards him, his own body red hot. “It’s evidence _you_ falsified, it’s evidence _I_ submitted. You could get in huge trouble for this.” He licks his lips, shakes his head slowly. “I could lose my job. They could kick me off —“

When Malfoy interrupts him, it’s with his cold, gray stare, pupils constricted to a sober diameter. “Don’t be dramatic, Potter,” Malfoy spits. He looks down his nose at Harry. It’s terrifying, really, how quickly Harry’s come to the conclusion that he wouldn’t mind breaking it the way Malfoy had his done in in sixth year with his dragon leather-clad foot. “They’d never boot the Boy Who Lived off the Aurors. And you don’t even need to tell anyone. This changes nothing. If anything, the Aurors on my father’s case will have even less than they do now. I don’t know where my parents are. Nobody knows where they are. You shouldn’t — you don’t need to tell.”

Harry smiles bitterly. “If you think I’ll ignore basic integrity for this, this _stupid_ thing you’ve done —“

“Oh, silly me, how foolish of me to forget that I’m in the presence of Saint Potter,” Malfoy grits out.

“Why?” Harry urges. “Why did you do it? Why not just keep the letter to yourself, save yourself the trouble of coming up with this this ridiculous fucking lie?” When Malfoy remains silent, Harry scoffs. “I let everyone, including you, convince me that you’d actually changed.”

Malfoy flinches but doesn’t meet Harry’s eyes as he wipes his palms against his thighs. “I have.”

“No. You haven’t.”

Malfoy’s lips part, and Harry waits. The sweat on his forehead has dried, and, miraculously but expectedly, every line in Malfoy’s face has drained of feeling, the panic of being caught out that had been there minutes ago now nowhere to be found. All he does is breathe in, trembling, and then he leaves Harry to stand alone in the hall again. Harry allows him to go, even if he doesn’t know where, because he doesn’t care. Robards could behead him the following morning for having lost track of Draco Malfoy, his one responsibility, his _only_ responsibility when it needn’t even be, when there’s no threat. But Harry thinks it’s the ethical choice. If he were to ride the lift down with Malfoy, he’d likely throttle him.

Harry saunters to his cubicle to retrieve his jacket and wand and to finally button his jeans. Simultaneously, his limbs feel like lead, as if they’re a thousand stone heavy, but hollow, like he could float away if he lifted his foot from the floor. The events of the night prior to Malfoy’s confession are long-forgotten to make space in Harry’s brain for the chorus of _whywhywhy_ that plagues him as he meanders to the lifts and to the Atrium and Floos back to Grimmauld Place because no, he hadn’t actually closed his Floo for the night. Malfoy’s almost right, it’s insignificant, and it might not change a thing in terms of finding the Malfoys senior, though it would call the attention of the DMLE to Draco once again after all he’s supposedly done to clean up his act. As Harry trudges up the stairs to his bedroom, he sees the warm glow of a light beneath the guest bedroom door. It’s jarring. Harry’s home is the last place to which he would have expected Malfoy to recede. The Manor, perhaps. He’d found it plausible that Malfoy might even beg to get back into Pansy’s good graces to disappear with all his traces from Harry’s life. But there he is, under Harry’s roof.

He leaves him be.

*** 

In Ron Weasley’s book, it’s definitely a Good Day.

He’d been at Headquarters for all of fourteen minutes before he and Pansy were assigned to Floo into Hogsmeade and put a stop to a crime that had ended up being just a couple of petty third-years and their poorly-cast Disillusionment Charms from stealing from Honeydukes. They weren’t even taking off with a sack of galleons in tow, but instead shoplifting an egregious amount of Ice Mice and Cauldron Cakes. Needless to say, they’d been caught and directed to the Headmistress for appropriate punishment. “Next time, put some effort in, lads. You should be ashamed of yourselves,” Ron had said as he’d patted one of the miserable-looking Gryffindor boys on the shoulder. “You know what would’ve helped? An invisibility cloak. And a secret passage from Honeydukes back to the castle.” He’d winked and laughed because, well, _impossible_ , though he’d still received a hard, pointy toe to the back of the knee that made his leg give out from under him. That didn’t put a damper on his Bloody Good Day, though, because he’d come to enjoy it, all of the violence from Pansy, and to think of it as a forceful sort of foreplay, which it oftentimes was. Thus, Ron was back at Headquarters by twenty past ten, a checkmark in the box on his to-do list beside the scrawl of _‘Do work shit,’_ which meant he could justifiably lounge behind his desk, kick up his feet, and enjoy a bag of crisps in restful solitude. He’d tried once to smuggle in an old Muggle telly and keep it on his desk for moments like these, but with all of the magical interference inside of the Ministry, he couldn’t even watch Family Guy without the telly fizzling and releasing a concerning trail of black smoke.

So Ron does without telly. It’s not a grave loss, though, because having the privilege of being an Auror means that he has access to all of the buzz and drama of Auror Headquarters, which, in all honesty, is almost as entertaining as Family Guy, and sometimes even funnier.

It’s sarnie day in the Canteen, which means he can save the tupperware full of massaged kale and cranberries and almonds that Hermione had packed for him that morning for a midday snack and instead treat himself to a lunch of a foot-long sub stuffed with onions and roasted capsicum and three different kinds of deli meat. Not only does he have his crisps, then, but he has an epic sandwich with which to enjoy the ongoings of Auror Headquarters. Harry had arrived with Malfoy that morning, as usual, though bearing an invisible storm cloud of silent brooding. Ron doesn’t think it’s necessarily out of the ordinary, because Harry and Malfoy hate one another, they always have, and it’s all Ron’s ever known. And if there’s one thing he’s learned about Harry Potter in all their years of friendship, it’s that Harry can be moody and it’s better to steer clear of him at times like these unless they want one of them storming off into the British wilderness and leaving the other with a Horcrux in hand. Ron thinks, around a bite of his sandwich, that he can do that. Hermione would urge Harry to talk out his feelings rather than bottling them up, but it’s much funnier to watch the others try to interact with Auror Potter when he’s having an off-day. The trainees approach him with questions like they’re close to weeing their pants, and Ron thinks the gawpy one with the yellow-blond hair just might when Harry spits at him with the utmost vehemence, _“Can’t you see that I’m a bit busy right now?”_ when all he’d been doing was clutching his head in his hands and staring intensely at his desk. Ron’s quite literally on the edge of his seat when Creasey spills his quills all over the floor and Malfoy, in a rather Hermione-esque fashion, _Oppugno_ s the batch of them to attack Harry in his moping. Ron slow-claps when every last quill is incinerated by a wordless, wandless _Incendio_ inches from Harry’s face — Harry doesn’t so much as move, which is _just fucking sick, mate_ — and the ashes of quills past flutter down to dust Harry’s desk and hair.

“What in Merlin’s name is going on out here?” Robards booms as he bursts out of his office, leering through the vague cloud of smoke dispersing into the air above Harry’s cubicle.

“Harry’s brooding,” Ron calls around a mouthful of sub.

“Thanks, Ron,” Harry rumbles dryly.

“How many times have I told you idiots to keep a safe distance from Auror Potter when he gets like this?” Robards roars. Harry lifts his head and glowers at the Head Auror. “St. Mungo’s has more important cases to deal with.” The door to Robards’ office slams behind him.

“Cool,” Creasey mutters into the following stillness, nodding and grinning at Malfoy. The blond git looks like he’s just swallowed a whole lemon. “Got no quills left, though. Know where I can get some extras?”

Malfoy lets out an uppity snort just as Pansy happens to sashay past, her pigtails bobbing and looking to be dip-dyed silver at the very ends, perhaps charmed to glitter in a way that normal hair doesn’t. Malfoy’s eyes follow her magnetically. “Certainly not the storeroom, unless you want to find out how ginger baby Grindylows are made.”

Creasey’s eyes sparkle with awe. “I never knew I wanted to ’til now.”

Pansy smirks and eyes only Malfoy in passing. “You think you besmirch me, dearest, but you’re just jealous you couldn’t give birth to a Dark creature.”

Malfoy fishmouths. Ron stuffs a handful of crisps into his mouth and licks the salt from his fingers. Malfoy regains his footing, though, so Team Pansy hasn’t won yet. “They’re hardly Dark. And by Ministry standards, about as dangerous as Puffskeins. They’re just greasy, glorified octopi with teeth,” Malfoy yaps. Ron frowns thoughtfully as he further rolls down the paper wrapping on his sandwich. He’d give that a seven. Or a four, he decides, when Pansy ignores Malfoy and struts up to his cubicle, pleated skirt swishing around her pale upper thighs, and places a fingertip just beneath Ron’s chin, tilting his chin up toward her face. She thumbs something from the corner of his lip — mustard, maybe — and licks it off. He goggles at her shapely lips.

“If you want dessert, Weasley, meet me on level seven in fifteen. I hear Games and Sports has a secret ball pit room for the Department’s self-indulgent amusement that only a few people, including me, know the password to,” Pansy whispers. Ron only realizes his jaw has dropped, mouth full of sub, when Pansy cringes and shuts it for him. “But if you show up smelling like ham, I’ll reconsider.” She’s gone in a flash of white, lace panties, his favorite color of lingerie on her, though he’s only seen five so far, so there’s still a world of possibility. A world of boners. Red, he imagines, might just kill him.

All this new and exciting development in his Bloody Good Day means is that he must eat faster and get the remaining seven inches of his sandwich down his throat in time to freshen up and pop down to the seventh level ball pit. Ron relaxes into his chair, chuckling to himself, because forcing seven inches down one’s throat makes him think of Malfoy and Malfoy makes him laugh. It makes him think of Harry, too, though he tries not to, because those three years in the Auror programme, three years of walking in on Harry — who Ron loves like a brother — laying with men — men beside whom Ron had spent years failing Potions at Hogwarts — in the close quarters of Auror training have thickened his skin (and his corneas), brought him to grips with Harry’s bisexuality, and permanently bruised his nuts because of his own never-ending flow of ingenious gay jokes that had Harry defensively hexing said nuts and Hermione griping on like a broken record about how “that’s crude and insensitive, Ronald.” Ron takes an at least two-inches-long bite of his sandwich. The moral of his emotional rollercoaster — which Ron has heard are brilliant but has yet to ride — is that he cannot make gay jokes around Harry lest he safeguard the health of his bollocks from the merciless wrath of Harry Potter, who sleeps around shamelessly with both witches and wizards for all the Wizarding World to hear and see but still can’t take a joke.

Ron becomes aware that five of his fifteen minutes have passed and he still has four inches of sandwich to get through. Nevertheless, he’s Ron Weasley. He’s dealt with more, accomplished more, and this quandary will not come between him and Pansy’s wicked tits.

*** 

Friday evening rolls around and Harry has yet to utter a word to Malfoy. It’s been nearly two full days.

He’s also yet to tell a soul about the forged letter. He’s gotten away with both because keeping his trap shut seems to be the only way he can handle things without fulfilling everyone’s expectations of Harry Potter: to first blow his lid off, then to swoop in and Do The Right Thing. And he doesn’t want to meet expectations, nor does he want to dampen the spirits of the Lucius Malfoy case team, nor lose his position, though he would just feel perpetually guilty if Robards’ favoritism kept him on. Least of all does he want to hand Malfoy over to the hands of the Ministry, because a misdemeanor on top of his objectionable track record could very well land him behind bars. And, well, despite Malfoy’s transgressions, Harry’s head, heart, and dick are rather fond of him.

Harry sits in bed, spliff burning away in hand, one window open not only because he’s attempting to be sensible about the smoke in the room, but also because it’s hilarious to hear Mr. Clarke and Mrs. Sylvester, respectively his right and left next door neighbors, scream accusingly at each other out their front windows about the other’s audacity to _smoke the marijuana in this neighborhood and at this time of night or any time of day, for that matter_.

Harry startles from his thoughts when his door cracks open, and he nearly whisks the covers over himself, but he is, in fact, wearing a ratty t-shirt and boxers. Malfoy’s at his door, gray gaze hesitant, though the way he steps into the room and shuts the door behind him is not as much.

“Potter,” he mumbles, almost… timid.

Harry sighs, blowing out smoke. “Malfoy, please don’t. Frankly, I don’t want to hear what you have to say.” He bites his lip, stares at his own bare toes through the haze. “And you’re always difficult, but right now, talking to you, _trying_ to talk to you, would feel like… like trying to boil the Atlantic.”

Malfoy ignores him and weaves skillfully between the scattered messes of clothes and belongings on Harry’s floor until he’s hopping up onto the bed beside Harry’s feet. He frowns at them, shoves at them until Harry’s huffing and pulling them toward himself. He’s too tired. He brings the joint to his lips, accepting that his fate for the night is to attempt to ignore Draco Malfoy sitting four feet from him, which will be a considerable challenge. But then Malfoy lays a neatly-folded piece of parchment onto the rumpled sheets between them and Harry stares at it suspiciously. After Malfoy does this, he crosses his loafered legs, which dangle over the edge of Harry’s bed, and settles his hands over the upper knee, spine straight as… well, Ron Weasley.

Harry does not want to care. Caring is the last thing he wants to do. And still, he mutters, “What is that?”

“The letter from my mother.” Malfoy ducks his head, lips pursed with tension. “The real one. The only one.”

Harry lifts a brow and stubs out his spliff in the ashtray on his nightstand. “Is it cursed?”

Malfoy rolls his eyes. “Mother put her life on the line and lied to the Dark Lord’s face to keep me alive. Do you really believe she would send me a letter cursed to kill?” Then he scoffs and shakes his head, fixing Harry with a dark stare that gets incrementally more annoyed the longer Harry feels it. “And why would I be in perfect condition if it was cursed? I just gave it to you with my bare hands, Potter. Use your Auror noggin.”

Harry glares at Malfoy from beneath his black fringe. He doesn’t bother attempting to explain the complexities of cursed objects to Malfoy that are stored in that Auror noggin of his, so he silently takes up his wand from the sheets and performs a routine _Revelio_ check on the letter that any Auror would on a dubiously Dark object. It comes back clean, so Harry begrudgingly picks it up and unfolds it. The inky, skinny cursive is familiar, he supposes, because he’d read a rather convincing copy of it weeks ago.

_Dearest Draco,_

_I’m sorry I haven’t reached out sooner. I wanted to wait until your father and I were safe, until it would be safe to reach out to you. It took some time, as your father is weak, not at his best, and, unfortunately, darling, I don’t have reason to believe he’ll be getting better any time soon. I have so much I want to tell you and explain to you that I can’t fathom writing it all down, but that is not to say I shan’t try._

_First, Draco, let me say that I don’t want you to worry. I know you hate to be in the dark, and I know I left without warning, and I know that people will talk by the time the news breaks, but it was for the best. The sooner they realize that you know nothing, that you had no part in this, the better._

_You needn’t worry about me. Your father is terribly ill, and I or anyone else could see that his months or weeks are numbered. I know we joke, you and I, about the ill-advised bandwagoning on your father’s allegiances that led to the very worst for our family, but I swear to you, Draco, that this is not a recurrence of that. I made the decision to do this on my own because I heard that your father wasn’t faring well, and Gods forbid I let the man I love, second to you, die soulless and alone in that rotten place._

_We won’t be found until I want us to be. I know we will see each other again, you and I, though you are old enough to know that we cannot be sure under which circumstances that will be._

_You’re a good man, Draco. You have done so well for yourself and by me these past several years. Keep your head held high. I know Blaise’s wedding is fast approaching. Stay close to your friends, Draco. Your feelings are valid._

_Please keep this letter a secret. I wanted you to know nothing to protect you from them, but I wanted you to know something, even if it’s a very small something, to protect you from yourself._

_All my love, always,_

_Your mother_

Once Harry’s read it twice, he lowers the letter and folds it along the existing, worn crease in the parchment. Malfoy’s head is tilted back as he stares at the ceiling. Harry sighs audibly but Malfoy still doesn’t move, pale palms glued together, finger to finger, knuckle to knuckle, in his lap, a white silhouette against his black trousers.

“Now I’ve read it,” Harry says slowly, “Will you tell me why?”

It takes a good minute for Malfoy to flinch aside from his calm blinking, and at that moment, he drops his chin to his chest so all Harry sees is his shock of platinum hair and the scrunch of his forehead. “Why the fake letter?” Malfoy asks. Harry thinks he might be crying, because of the way his shoulders shake, but it’s just that bitter laughter of Malfoy’s that Harry absolutely loathes. Malfoy rubs at the back of his neck, the laugh ending on a breath out his nose and a shake of his head. “That’s a stupid question. More like ‘why must you always be so daft, Potter?’”

Harry frowns because he may be a bit high but he’s not daft. Not _so_ daft, at least. Malfoy won’t meet his eyes. “The fact that you won’t answer the question makes it seem a hell of a lot less stupid.”

Malfoy sniffs and when he swallows, it makes a squelching noise that has the skin of his neck pinking up. “This may surprise you, but I didn’t do it to cause trouble.” Though Malfoy’s trying to appear indifferent and emotionless, which Harry can tell he isn’t, his voice falters on every word. “They put me in your house, Potter, at first so you could keep an eye on me while I was a suspect. They gave me Susan’s job to keep an even closer eye on me.” He licks his chapped lips, presses those frigid palms down between his thighs. “You’re venerated. They trust you to watch over me. And I may be a pariah, but I’m a boring pariah. Nobody gives a shit about me anymore unless they want an inane reason to point and laugh. I’m sure every Auror, each and every last one of your colleagues, knows that my father was — is — nothing but a spineless fool. And I’m the spineless fool’s son. So. The Aurors collect evidence, anything they can find to pin Father’s escape on me, and by some miracle or because I’m genuinely just fucking clueless, they decide that I’m innocent. A couple of weeks on, I remain innocent, and my parents are nowhere to be found. Father, being a spineless fool, is considered to no longer be a danger to the community, and I am no longer a person of interest. Why keep me around? Keep me here? Why waste valuable Auror resources on me?” Harry just breathes. It may be a trick of the light, but he thinks Malfoy’s eyes look raw and red. He smiles, and crescent moon-shaped lines form by the corners of his lips. “Unless, of course, I required the protection of the Aurors. Unless I became… interesting again. And at the same time, Potter, when I received that letter, I wanted to show you, and I hated that I wanted to show you. I still do. And I hated that you wanted me to show you if I did receive anything.” Malfoy takes a shuddering breath, smile not quite intact, eyes pinned to his lap. “I guess you could say I seized the opportunity.”

Harry doesn’t want to scare Malfoy off. He doesn’t. If he could read a list of Malfoy’s least favorite things, he suspects he would find ‘admitting weakness’ and ‘voluntary emotional vulnerability’ somewhere near the top. It isn’t that Malfoy hides his emotions, no. He’s a one-man drama day and night. But he’s never like this, doesn’t allow himself to be, and the only times Harry’s seen through his cracks are on those rare occasions that his jabs hit hard enough. So he nearly cuffs himself when he blurts, “You’ve got to be pretty damn twisted to see that as an opportunity.”

Malfoy, to his surprise, doesn’t scare so easy. He smiles, sad and flustered and amused all in one curve of pale lips, and turns his head toward Harry. “I’m very twisted.”

Harry snorts, though he finds that now he’s got Malfoy’s steely eyes on him, he can’t return the gaze. He picks at a notch in the holly of his wand.

“Incredibly twisted. I came up with my evil plan in a matter of minutes. Duplicate the handwriting, change the content, keep the original. The execution of it ate up some time, as did swearing Iggy and Tilly into their young Master’s secrecy, of course,” says Malfoy, weakly sardonic. “And then I showed it to you. I didn’t think it would work so marvelously. And yet… Here I am. It’s June and here I am.” Harry watches Malfoy slide off the bed, shoes squeaking as his weight lands. “There you have it, Potter, the whole story. You know everything now. Go on, go be a Saint, go turn me in, as I’m still the pathetic git you thought me to be in school.”

“It’s not your fault that you’ll always be a git, Malfoy,” Harry mutters, setting his wand down beside the letter still on his sheets. When Malfoy shoots him a glare, it’s softened by a withering smile, a surrendering one that wraps its pale, bony fingers around Harry’s heart and tugs persistently at it, tries to wrench it from his chest. Harry gives him a crooked smile and shakes his head. “And, y’know, I… I still don’t get it. You faked the letter because you wanted to stick around — _why_? Because you liked people liking you? Because you wanted to belong?” He laughs but it sounds like a cough. “That doesn’t sound right. You could’ve — you already had friends, Malfoy, and allies, long before we hit you with a bloody desk job.”

Malfoy sinks onto Harry’s bed again. He snatches up the letter, unfolds it, stares through the parchment instead of reading it. The parchment crunches as his fingers clench, making new, messy folds in the letter that he’d seemed to dedicated to preserving. “So fucking daft, Potter,” he whispers. Harry’s frozen to his spot, knees drawn to his chest, and all he does is stare when Malfoy hisses, “You’re so fucking daft,” and looks directly at him with red, glassy eyes, soft, white hair falling into them, sticking to the dampness underneath. And then Harry thinks he understands.

He forgets about Malfoy’s felony, about the silent treatment, and he scoots toward Malfoy. He sits criss-cross directly beside him, and Malfoy makes a noise of protest when he reaches out, but on contact, Harry watches Malfoy’s limbs turn to jelly, the letter fluttering from his fingers to the floor. Harry drags him, height and long limbs and cashmere sweater and all, into his lap, where Malfoy goes slack against him. His hard shoulder digs into Harry’s chest and his forehead butts into Harry’s temple, skewing his glasses. Harry hugs his hunched form close even so, even as he feels Malfoy’s tears moisten his cheek, when he can taste their salt against the corner of his own lips if he darts his tongue out, when he can hear those pitiful, sob-like breaths and feel their warmth right up against his ear. “Just wanted to stay,” Malfoy breathes. His lips touch Harry’s cheek.

“I know.”

“You’re so daft,” Malfoy insists.

Harry swallows against the lump in his throat. He looks down. Malfoy’s lank legs dangle over the end of the bed and over one of Harry’s thighs while his tailbone prods the other. “I know.” And unlike his hands, Malfoy’s torso is warm, so warm that Harry’s sweating right through his shirt where the side of Malfoy’s body is pressed along his sternum. He looks at Malfoy’s hands, limp in his lap, palms facing upward like wilted, white rose petals, browning at the edges. With his brow furrowed, Harry looks lastly to his face. “And you’re twisted.”

Malfoy tries to avoid him initially. But he releases his bitten, red lip and blinks so another few fat tears glide down his cheeks. A smile flickers there so fast Harry thinks he might’ve imagined it. “I know,” he whispers, and Harry feels it when Malfoy’s hand curves against his chest. Then Malfoy makes to kiss him, but Harry moves at the same time, rolling them so Malfoy lands on his back in Harry’s strewn sheets and Harry on his knees above him. Malfoy seems to hold his breath, peering up at Harry from the pillows, where his unpotioned hair fans out around him. Harry knows this means something. What it means, he’s not sure, nor is he sure what he is to do, so he follows his gut like he does too often.

The first to go is his own shirt, then his boxers. He has to straighten his glasses on his nose. Malfoy watches, head lolled back, clutching at his own shoulders as if to ground himself. Harry unbuckles Malfoy’s shoes, relishes the heavy thuds they make falling to the floor. He peels off his tube socks, kisses the top of his left foot, and he’s careful despite his impatience with the elaborate fastening on Malfoy’s trousers. Then it’s his little, black boxers, and his jumper is the last to go. Malfoy holds up his arms to help Harry get it off, and once he’s free, what Harry reveals from underneath is his flushed face, his open, wanting eyes, and Harry laces their fingers together on both hands as he looms over Malfoy, presses his flower petal hands into the mattress, kisses his raw mouth. The salt of tears. A hint of blood. Hands obviously occupied, Harry shakes his glasses off so they land on the mattress, and Malfoy gasps out a laugh, mutters something about _just using magic_ , and he’s so smart, he really is, because in this state, Harry hadn’t even thought of it. To reward him, he lifts his own hand, which in turn lifts Malfoy’s, and he kisses the inside of his left wrist. It’s the arm that’s pink down to the elbow with a splotchy scar the kind one gets from a bad burn, still emblazoned darkly with the Mark. Malfoy hums softly at the kiss, even if he shifts under Harry and somewhere in the unclear distance murmurs, “Can’t feel that.”

Harry remembers. He kisses an inch lower. “What about there?”

“Mm-mmm.”

Harry drags his mouth from the head of the snake to the skull. “There?”

Malfoy chuckles. “No. Can’t feel it.”

Harry tongues the very inside of his elbow, where his faint pulse beats. “How ‘bout there?”

“Nuh-uh.”

Harry skips his bicep entirely and goes straight for the neck, burying his face into it, biting tenderly and pinning Malfoy’s hands above his head. Malfoy practically squeals at the suddenness, and his ankles tangle with Harry’s, faint laughter in his ear. “Now?”

“Yes. Bastard.”

Harry smiles to himself. “Shut up, Malfoy,” he mutters, finally finding his mouth.

Harry recalls — once upon a time, a time several weeks ago — when he’d thought he’d been spiralling, spiralling for Malfoy. And he still hasn’t reached the ground, though it’s only been downhill since. _Where is the fucking ground?_ he thinks as Malfoy’s fingers knot into his hair, as Malfoy’s thighs wrap around his middle, as Malfoy kisses the scar on his forehead and tells him he hates it. “The same way you hate me?” Harry asks. Spiralling. Malfoy hugs his shoulders like he physically cannot let go, and responds belatedly with nothing more than an _Mhm_ into Harry’s mouth. Harry tastes the nervous sweat on his skin from their earlier little talks when he kisses the middle of Malfoy’s chest while Malfoy’s fingers fluff up his hair. Harry thinks he can hear him hum under his breath, even under all his heavy breathing, mad with the power he holds over Harry, because damn, does he have power.

“Look at you,” Malfoy’s saying, his chuckle a song, and Harry imagines his hair looks like that of those Muggle Troll Dolls. He glares up his chest at him as he closes his mouth over Malfoy’s hard nipple. Malfoy presses his thigh between Harry’s legs in payback, but it has an equal effect on both of them, Harry thinks, because Malfoy’s exhaling shakily and mumbling, “So hard.” Of course, Harry’s eyes roll back into his head a bit, and he presses his forehead into Malfoy’s ribcage, nose against the soft plane of his stomach as Malfoy’s needy fingers knead at Harry’s shoulders. He wanted to stay. He wanted to stay. “Come back,” pleads Malfoy, and Harry does, slots their lips together, grinds their hips together. Malfoy’s fingertips draw contour lines over Harry’s biceps, cup Harry’s arse, reining him in. Harry can feel Malfoy’s heels hit the small of his own back. He’s folded in half, practically, with his hands lower than his bloody heels, and Harry has no right to find it adorable.

Malfoy lets Harry eat him out, just for a bit — _“It’s a privilege, Potter, that I don’t want to lose its novelty”_ — white hands clinging to the sheets. He tries to peer down, watch Harry there between his legs, but Harry doesn’t let him. It only takes a bit of magic to force the back of Malfoy’s head down to the pillow, and the first time Harry does it, Malfoy breathes, _“What the fuck?”_ , but then it becomes a game, and the second time and third time he simply laughs, _“I hate you, Potter,”_ and a shaky, _“I was subtle that time. You’re cheating. Cheater.”_

Harry fingers him open with lube he Conjures — _“I Conjured it last time, you lazy tosser, while you were half-asleep”_ — and damn Malfoy for never letting him do it before, because Harry revels in it. He thinks he’d revel in anything, most likely, that involves having Malfoy’s thighs cushion his ears and coaxing those senseless noises from him.

Once he’s inside him, Malfoy hugs him again, but Harry begs to move. Malfoy’s hands canvas all over his face, dragging over his eyebrows, touching his lips before he kisses them and moans into them, scratching the stubble on his jaw, while hardly once closing his eyes. Malfoy insists that Harry get on his back. They slip apart. Malfoy winces. Harry groans, but he gets on his back.

“Why?” Harry grumbles.

“I live to torture you.”

When Malfoy mounts him, Harry croaks out a disbelieving laugh, because he’s got a view of nothing but Malfoy’s sweet little arse and his back, all lean muscle and ribs moving under skin. Malfoy’s hands press into Harry’s thighs. He rides him in reverse. Harry holds his hips, bucks unevenly, because on what planet could he control himself? Malfoy peeks over his shoulder at him, infinitely lovely, eyebrow raised.

“Consider me tortured,” Harry breathes, voice gruff.

When Harry comes, it’s when Malfoy’s facing him again, though still on top. His damp, white fringe sticks to his forehead, glued in place even as he bounces, _eager_ , though he curves over Harry to kiss the climactic _Draco_ from his mouth when it happens. Harry jerks him off, not doing him justice, but Malfoy seems to like it even so, and Harry likes _him_ , so it works out fantastically. It’s blurry, and Harry doesn’t _Accio_ his glasses in time to see Malfoy’s face crystalline as he comes, but the sound of it rings in his ears for minutes after.

“Ow,” whines Malfoy as he lays down beside Harry, directly on top of his glasses. Once he’s extricated himself from them, they both lay in silence, catching their breaths, eyes on the ceiling. Malfoy shifts first. He turns onto his side to lay his cheek against Harry’s chest. His palm follows. It goes to Harry’s stomach, tracing around his navel and the dark, coarse hair above and below until it comes to a stop. Harry doesn’t move. Malfoy’s hand rests there awhile until his whole arm slides across Harry’s waist. _He’s staying._ Harry magicks the covers over them, presses his nose into Malfoy’s hair until his neck goes lax and he drifts off.

*** 

There’s commotion. There’s commotion on a Saturday morning, which never happens, and this particular commotion transpires very suddenly.

When Draco opens his eyes, he’s in Potter’s pigsty of a bedroom. The drapes billow around the open window, and they’re no longer in the position in which they’d fallen asleep. Draco lays on his stomach, hogging Potter’s pillow, and if he lifts his head in the opposite direction, which he does, he’ll find Potter, sleep-rumpled, jaw ajar as he breathes loudly through his mouth between snores. His arm rests heavily on Draco’s back. The more he thinks about Potter’s arm, the heavier it feels, and Draco smushes his smile into the pillow before turning onto his own side to face Potter.

The night before, there had been blubbering. This he recalls with a tremulous, inward cringe. Draco had crawled to Potter for forgiveness, he’d cried, he’d blubbered, and the only thing convincing him that all the bliss that had followed had truly been real is the fact that he’s still there, under Potter’s sheets, under his arm, smelling like Potter’s sweat. Draco squeezes Potter’s rounded deltoid, bites the tip of his tongue as his eyes follow his own hand down Potter’s shoulder to his tan neck. The jackhammer snoring and heavy breathing should be an issue, but Draco had slept through the night like a baby. Potter’s breath is terrible, but Draco chances it anyway as he kisses him lightly. He gets a mumbled, _“Hey,”_ in greeting, but he thinks Potter’s back to sleep before he can stir any further.

That’s when the commotion ensues.

Draco hears noises, normal noises like shuffling footsteps from the faraway downstairs. It’s not abnormal, by any means; they have three elves under one roof, after all. But their elves don’t wear shoes. Someone in heavy boots stampedes up the stairs to about halfway. Potter groans, turns away from Draco to burrow into the pillow while Draco sits up on his elbows. He frowns at the door. There’s more footsteps, distinct from the first, and one intruder speaks only to be harshly interrupted by the second. All of the feet, now uncountable, reach the second floor, and the wall between Draco and Potter’s rooms quakes slightly with the slam of what Draco can only assume is his door flying on its hinges. A groan, an expletive, muffled arguing, and the same spell is directed at Potter’s door. Draco sits fully upright. The door is flung open, and his eyes slowly grow wider as he looks from those of Pansy to those of Granger.

“Ah, lovely. Caught in flagrante,” Pansy mutters, frivolously dusting off her hands before sticking her wand back into her stocking.

Draco can’t think. _Doesn’t_ think. “The door was unlocked,” he murmurs, only then feeling the need to clutch the sheets to his bare chest. “The breaking-and-entering was unnecessary.”

Granger, hair bushier than usual, nose snotty and eyes rimmed with red, looks in a panic between the lazy, sleepy lump in the sheets beside Draco, Draco himself, and Pansy. “You,” she starts shrilly, gaping at Pansy, “Did you know about this? Harry and Draco?”

Pansy rolls her heavily-lined eyes. “For fuck’s sake, Granger. You’re arguably the smartest person in this room. Act a bit less shocked, please. Draco’s bed was empty when we found it. From there you could’ve used what we commoners call _deductive reasoning_.”

Granger, who clutches to her chest a tiny, beaded handbag, stiffens at Pansy’s tone. “Bitch,” she breathes. Draco chokes on air. Pansy sighs but her dark glare doesn’t relent.

Draco believes Granger, in her state of emotional turmoil, has reason to visit Potter at this hour on a Saturday. But _Pansy_? He attacks her first. “Would you care to tell me what the hell you’re doing here?” Granger takes a step back and leans against the wall, sinking slightly, eyes on Potter’s form in the bed. _No chance, Granger, he’s out cold,_ Draco thinks.

Pansy smiles tightly. “As fun as this is, and as much as I would’ve liked to enter this fray just to wreak havoc, I come on Ministry orders,” she says. Draco peeks at Potter from the corners of his eyes.

“What orders?” he inquires tentatively.

Draco had been entirely correct, then, in the fact that he’d discerned the footsteps of more than just two people. Through the doorway and into the room traipses Narcissa Malfoy, Victorian ankle boots clicking against the hardwood floor. Draco feels the blood drain from his face and come rushing back again. His mother smiles temperately at him, donning a black overcoat buttoned trimly across her neck, waist, and bosom, and flowing down to her ankles. In June. Draco shakes urgently at Potter’s shoulder without once looking away from his mother.

“Hello, darling,” Narcissa says.

“Mother,” Draco whispers.

“Whazzappnin’?” Potter wheezes, hugging the sheets to his chest.

Draco suspects his forehead vein is having a field day. Transitively, Pansy must also be. “My _mother_ is here and I’m — _we_ are naked in your bed,” Draco states in a panic, and because Potter’s eyes remain shut, Draco continues to jostle him with increased violence. Potter groans what would be an otherwise heavenly noise but at this very moment is both terrifying and frustrating. “Potter, did you hear me? I’m! I’m _naked_! _Do_ something!”

Pansy sniggers. Potter, helpful as ever, opens one eye. “Fine, fine,” he mumbles through sleepy, puffy lips, and with a snap of his fingers, he clothes Draco.

“Thank you,” Draco says coldly, releasing the sheets. A cursory glance downward reveals that he’s clad in Potter’s discarded boxers from the night before and a t-shirt adorned with the Gryffindor House crest. Pansy does a very poor job of muffling her cackle against the back of her hand. “I’ll kill you later,” he adds, and Potter, rubbing dozily at his eyes, smiles. Draco fails to not do so back. Right. Mother. Draco whisks the sheets aside and slides out of the bed, turning almost numbly to face the trio of women by the door. “What? What’s —“

“I know, dear,” Narcissa says, and she moves toward Draco with such grace that he fears she’s become a ghost, though she’s very much familiar, solid, and angular as she takes Draco into her arms, one across his shoulders and the other cupping the back of his head. His own arms dangle limply by his sides until he places them around her waist, smaller than it’s ever been. She doesn’t smell like her usual, perfumed self. “My boy, I know.” When Draco dares to look over her shoulder at Pansy, she’s no longer sneering at him. Her eyes are fixed on her Mary Janes. Granger cries silently. His mother withdraws, and Draco feels bereft, though her gloved hands clutch him by the shoulders and keep him upright. With the extra inches from her heels, they’re the same height. “This is a lot to take in, my love, I know. I know, and I’m sorry, but I can’t…” she falters. Draco, feeling peaky, looks from one of his mother’s eyes to the other, and anticipates what is to come. “I don’t mean to ambush you in this way, but I haven’t got much time. Can we please speak alone?”

Draco nods without vigor. There’s a rustle of sheets, and when Draco looks, Potter is up and staring directly at Narcissa, glasses in place.

“Good morning, Mr. Potter,” Draco’s mother says with a cold quirk of her lips that tugs at the fine lines around her mouth. “If you don’t mind, I’ll be downstairs with my son.”

Pansy and Potter seem to communicate without words when his eyes seeks hers out for explanation, and then Potter just nods. Draco allows himself to be led by the elbow to the door. Pansy catches onto his fingers to slow him down. “I need to talk to you,” she murmurs, lips creased tiny with worry, eyes big and emerald beneath her blunt fringe.

Draco finds it in himself to smile ironically. “Can it wait?” he mutters, letting his hand slip from his mother’s as she stalks away, trusting him to follow. “I, er. I need to talk to you, too.” He fingers the Gryffindor lion on his shirt unconsciously.

Pansy cracks a smile, too, as she nods and pokes Draco in the chest. In the lion. “Clearly.”

Draco snorts, and then he follows his mother down the stairs.

*** 

Harry rises from the bed and Hermione shields her eyes, but Pansy looks on uninterestedly as he briskly dresses himself in a selection of smelly clothes from his floor. “Parkinson, please tell me you know what you’re doing and that you didn’t just let Narcissa, who’s been undercover for months without Auror detection, disappear with Malfoy,” he mutters. He’s almost positive he’s sober, though the thought of Malfoy, Malfoy’s mother, Hermione, and Pansy all in his bedroom would’ve seemed to him yesterday like a hallucination.

Pansy shuts the door and folds her arms over her chest as he takes a step forward. It’s a step toward Harry, not Hermione, though the latter flinches like she’s been burned, doing a ramshackle job of holding all of the delicate pieces of herself intact. Ron Weasley is the elephant in the room, but even Harry can’t address that yet. “Relax, big shot. Corner and Goldstein are down there with them. It’s… it’s complicated, but she turned herself in, they arrested her, and then she demanded that she get her counsel, that she get to see Draco.” Pansy’s lips purse and she shrugs, unwavering in her stance, feet wide apart. “It was supposed to be a standard firecall, but I suppose you gain the Department’s favor when you hand over the body of your dead but fugitive husband to the Aurors.”

Harry sticks a button on his shirt into the wrong hole so it hangs lopsidedly on his shoulders, eyes on Pansy. “Lucius is dead?”

Pansy nods, drags her teeth over her lower lip. “Yep,” she answers, with an emphatic ‘p.’

Harry blinks. He wanders toward Hermione, feeling inadequate in every way but still protective as ever, and draws her into his side without explanation, petting at her unbrushed hair and tucking her head into his neck. It’s a promise of _I know. Later._ She whimpers gratefully and clings to his shirt. “How?” he mutters.

Pansy shakes her head, hair brushing her jaw. “He was ill. Really, really poorly from Azkaban. Physically, and I guess mentally.” She wrinkles her nose, shudders. “You should’ve seen it, Potter. His body. He was, like, fresh. Freshly _dead_. And she went straight to the Ministry, Narcissa did. Gave everyone a right spook. Three people fainted in the Atrium.”

Hermione sniffs. Her hair tickles Harry’s nose as she lifts her head, shakes it wildly. “That’s terrible. He was a cruel, cruel man, that Lucius Malfoy, but the conditions in that prison are utterly unjust. He deserved to stay behind those walls for decades longer, sound of body and of mind, to reflect upon what he’s done. However much he’d deteriorated to something cowardly, something less than human, the incarcerated are people, too. The healthcare in Azkaban — the lack thereof — it is… that’s just abominable,” she weeps, stomping her foot against the floor passionately. When Pansy simply raises a brow at her, Hermione recedes back into Harry’s chest.

Harry waits a few seconds to follow that, just because he thinks it’s appropriate. “Let me get this straight — Lucius _died_ , Narcissa went to the Ministry the moment he kicked the bucket, and now she’s here to tell Draco about it?”

Pansy shakes her head slowly, but not as a ‘no.’ Her signature devilish smirk, the one Harry had seen much less of around Headquarters since her falling-out with Malfoy, makes a guest appearance. “Ain’t nothin’ straight about this situation, is there, Potter?” She kicks at the floor — no, not at the floor, but at what is distinctly Malfoy’s jumper _on_ his floor. Harry blanches, having momentarily forgotten that the foreground to the chaos is, in fact, his and Malfoy’s Morning After.

“Right.” He clears his throat. No comment needed.

“Harry, I know my timing is just awful, but I’d really like to…” Hermione interjects shamefully against his shoulder.

“That’s my cue,” says Pansy, eyebrows and heels bouncing as a unit as she turns toward the door.

“Yes, of course, Hermione. I’m sorry,” Harry hums, ushering her toward the bed before thinking the better of it and magicking it made and clean first. “Come sit down.”

“Harry?” Hermione whispers.

“Mm?”

“Would you please tell that conniving cunt that I — that I despise her,” she requests tersely.

Pansy, who hasn’t yet left the room, hangs onto the doorframe as her gaze moves uncomfortably from Hermione to Harry. “I’ll save you the trouble, Potter, of speaking for both Granger and yourself. _Yes_ , I’ll make sure Draco’s okay.”


	16. Chapter 16

Draco’s toes are bare and cold against the tile of Potter’s kitchen floor. He wonders unrelatedly how he’d never noticed that the floors are so cold, but he soon reasons that it’s because he’s never without socks, _never_ — except in bed, because that’s a pure sin — and that his current state must be an extraordinary circumstance and exception to his daily sock-wearing routine if he’s ever seen one.

Mother stands, an oxymoron, just a few feet away. Draco fears that at any moment she’ll crumble out of old age and emotional toil into a pile of monochromatic dust, but he’s also concerned that her — her _misadventures_ over the past couple months have turned her to stone. She might as well have been; she’s survived the Dark Lord, broken her husband out of high-security prison, and survived him, as well. She must be unbreakable, and even if she isn’t, isn’t physically indestructible and made of marble, she’s proven yet again the strength of her iron will. Imposing as ever, Draco decides, but still withering if he looks close enough.

Draco’s toes curl into the floor. Dust bunnies and specks of dirt he extrapolates to have resided once upon a time in the grooves of one tromping Ron Weasley’s shoes stick to his bare feet. He scrunches up his nose, longs for his wand upstairs, or just for Potter to snap his fingers and have the floor gleaming in an instant. Draco prefers to do things himself, but damn if he doesn’t enjoy telling Potter to do things _for_ him more.

“Draco,” his mother says in that familiar even tone that masks exasperation expertly. “Please don’t tell me I have to repeat myself.”

Draco blinks, lifts his head from where he’d been absently — unintentionally — fixing the lion on his shirt with a judgmental stare. “You don’t,” he assures her. Someone coughs outside the kitchen door. It’s likely one of the Auror oafs, Goldener or Cornstein or whoever. Draco can never remember who is who with them. They’ve both got thick necks and big arms and plain features. Faceless, buff Ravenclaws. He forces a smile for his mother’s sake, before recalling that it’s his bleeding mother and therefore the smile is nothing but a wasted exertion of his precious facial muscles. She can read him like a children’s book. “No, Mother, you needn’t repeat yourself.” He’d registered what he’d needed to. A plan she’d been formulating for months, which had all begun after she’d hear from Mrs. So-and-So that her sister’s husband’s brother who’s an Auror on a rotating shift at Azkaban had said that _that bastard Lucius Malfoy’s hardly recognizable anymore, and he’ll be nothing but a skeleton if and once his hair starts falling out_. And a map. There had been a magical map of her own making. Those details had been confusing to Draco, but she’d glossed over them anyway. Her late cousin, the misfit one, Potter’s godfather, the one whose devastatingly gorgeous portraits Draco had seen few of in his life — the few that hadn’t been burned — had been somewhat of a spellsmith when it came to the advanced Homonculous Charm in his glory days at Hogwarts, around the time his mother had been there (and when Potter’s father had been there. _Weird_ ). She’d learned a thing or two, supposedly. Once free, they — Mother and Father — had fled and lived underground, seldom seen sunlight during their last weeks together. Father had been ill, ill to the point that his body would reject nourishment, that he would continuing wasting away on the inside until his heart became too weak to support the rest of him. He’d died. She’d been there with him as he had, held him, watched him vomit his insides out until he bled, but hadn’t buried him. She’d needed his body as some form of tangible proof and a hopeless chance at clearance with the Ministry. He’d already taken so much from her that Draco did not find this a surprise, nor an unreasonable deal. There was to be an arraignment for Mother, and soon, but she’d insisted upon seeing Draco first.

“Are you upset?” It means _shall I hug you, or will you just push me away?_

Draco mulls over the question. It’s been five years since he’s seen Father. He thinks he’d felt bereft when the news had struck him about five minutes ago. He’d shed a few tears, even, which have now dried uncomfortably onto his cheeks. Right then, though, he can’t distinguish quite what he’s feeling. His chest stings, his temples ache, but to trace the roots of the painful pangs in his body would be to detangle a mess of emotional necklace chains, and any sensible being knows that’s incontrovertibly impossible. He sighs. “I’m… glad you’re alright,” he settles upon and peers at her face fleetingly. She flashes him an empty smile in response, steps close to squeeze his shoulder. Getting too close would be a mistake, undoubtedly. Draco thinks they both can smell the foul outcome of her sentencing from a mile away.

“He was very regretful in his last moments,” Narcissa says. Draco stares at his hands in his lap because this is just bloody morbid. He adores his mother, he does, and it’s just that keeping Draco from demanding that Cornstein and Goldener drag his mother back to the Ministry just to put an end to the Lucius-talk. “Mostly about you. He was glad you weren’t there to see him in such a state. I was, too.”

Draco snorts. “I didn’t have much of a choice.”

Mother’s nails dig into his shoulder. He glances at the pilling wool of her coat. “You’ll be glad for that, dear, when all of this is over,” she says quietly. There’s a soft knock and the kitchen door creaks open. Goldener pokes his head inside.

“Mrs. Malfoy, three minutes.” His eyes move from Mother to Draco, at whom he smiles slightly before ducking out. Three minutes until they take her into custody, Draco supposes. Posting bail was not an option, his mother had explained. Given her role of accomplice in his father’s escape artist act, he shouldn’t be dismayed.

Mother withdraws from Draco, smooths at her coat, breathes out deeply. It’s all in vain, because only then does Draco plunge past all of the sick irony and humor floating like foam over his feelings and rise to his feet, wrapping his arms around his mother’s thin frame and burying his nose into her shoulder. His eyes close.

“Sweetheart.” She pets at Draco’s hair only the way she can, the way that’s careful not to ruin it, though there’s nothing to ruin because Potter had done plenty of damage the night before and Draco had hardly a chance to repair any of it in the morning.

What is he to do? What is he to do now if they take Mother away? He’s been without his mother literally for two months and his father literally for five years though emotionally for much longer, but is he to return to his banal life as if one of the people who should be most important and influential in his life hadn’t just gasped at his last breath hours earlier? Draco had chosen to stay at Grimmauld Place with Potter not because he’d been scared for his life or even because he’d have been lonely at the Manor without _Mother_ , but that’s beside the point. He’d gone through the motions of the prior months with bated breath, with the firm knowledge that somewhere out there his mother was alive (and his father, too, but only by her doing). Merlin, what had he even been _doing_ this whole time? His fingernails dig into Mother’s ribs, which he can feel even through her inch-thick layers. His entire existence was trivial. He’d labored temporarily under the delusion that something would come of his stupid, pointless unrequited love, then whined and sobbed over it for just as long. And then, it was gone. _Evanesco._ Brushed aside by new distractions. Perhaps it’s lying dormant somewhere in the pit of Draco’s stomach, that affection for Blaise, will always be, hiding under all of the Harry _freaking_ Potter he’s swallowed — metaphorically, but Draco concedes with a sigh that he’s swallowed quite a bit of him in the literal sense, as well — but what does that matter? If it surfaces, so be it. Draco seems to live his life in short bursts of activity and emotion or go completely without for achingly long stretches, so, yes, if Draco’s heart decides he wants Blaise again, it might as well happen again eventually. Not for long, though. Never for long.

But not just yet. He can’t recall the last time he truly pined after Blaise — though he’s certain Pansy would gladly refresh him with a second-by-second instant replay of the last time he _in fact did, Draco,_ because she has a tendency to commit things to memory if she knows she’ll be able to use them against him someday in an _I told you so_ fashion — and it’s because of Potter. Potter, on whose floor Draco believes that earthworms are laying eggs inside of pungent, dirty clothing piles older than Pansy’s crush on Weasley. Potter, who’d gone two full days — now verging on three — without revealing Draco’s cursed letter misdeed, and in the process of fighting his inner Good Person had instantly transformed into a complete dick for all of the MLE to see, which Draco had found and still finds endlessly amusing (he would’ve never jinxed quills to fly at Potter’s head had he not been expecting a move as equally dickish and flaunting of his magical prowess as that _Incendio_ had been). Potter, who’d, _Gods_ , who’d held Draco after he’d said something mortally embarrassing and then loved on him with a smile and with dumb commentary and hungrily like Draco was something he wanted, something precious. Draco had known Potter wanted him, had known it a while because Potter was tactless and jealous and blatantly obvious in a way Potter himself didn’t realize, probably because he’d gone from virginally dancing around Ginevra Weasley and Cho Chang to bestially, carnally devouring the entire fraction of the Wizarding population that swings the way of the hung, big-egoed, forever-jeans-wearing Savior. But Draco hadn’t known he’d meant like that. That had been an entirely different breed of desire.

It had felt that way, at least.

But what does any of that matter? Draco is a pitiful speck on the negligibly larger speck that is planet Earth and his father, also a speck but an ugly and cruel speck under the duress of which Draco’s own speck had once orbited in its specky gravity, is dead. Death is real. The war is long over, but death is still real, and without a doubt at this very moment, society is probably barely waking to their late-morning Saturdays and cups of coffee and rejoicing over toast and sleepy eyes about the vague but sure news smattered across the front page of the _Prophet_ : Lucius Malfoy is finally dead, and no one had to lay a physical finger or wand on him for it to happen. And that’s supposed to mean something, isn’t it? He’s gone. It’s a wonder he’s made it this long, but he’s gone.

“I don’t want you to go,” Draco mumbles like an idiot who actually speaks what they feel rather than cleverly camouflaging it all under bitter sarcasm. Like… like Neville Longbottom. It’s the first name that comes to Draco’s mind, though he knows Longbottom is more of a man than Draco will ever be, even with his heart on his sleeve. _Mummy, I don’t want you to go._ He won’t pull the Mummy card until he’s on his deathbed, Draco swears, but he thinks Mother can hear it in his tone.

“I know, darling.” She whispers it against the peak of his cheekbone and kisses him there.

She’s indestructible despite being old and frazzled, and Draco thinks a few months in a dire situation has, strangely enough, put her back on her rocker as opposed to knocked her further off. But now she’ll have to go be indestructible somewhere that isn’t by his side, nor across from him at the breakfast table, nor asleep in the West wing of the Manor while he sleeps in the East. Neither commenting on his fabric choices or crowing in delight when she returns home to Draco with a new antique Fabergé egg or supervising him from a second storey window while he kneels in the garden getting his hands inexcusably dirty with gardening therapy.

Draco expects Cornstein and his tree trunk neck to be the one to march in, declare their time up, but when the door creaks open and someone’s fingers find his shoulders, he can tell by the perfume that it’s Pansy. Draco lets his arms fall to his sides, sees Mother’s eyes glisten and flushes at the wet spot on her coat as the Auror duo guide her from the kitchen and down the hall to Potter’s parlour. The grainy whoosh that sounds of green flame is followed by silence.

“Shouldn’t you go with them?” he mutters, voice thin.

Pansy rubs at his shoulders. She’s just the height that if she pitched her head forward, her forehead would rest just between Draco’s shoulder blades. “I’m not on the case, remember?” says Pansy. When she sits gingerly down on the bench at the table, Draco does not expect her to tug him into her lap, but he doesn’t resist it, even if he feels infantile knowing he’s already moped in one person’s lap the night before. Plus, he’s missed her.

“I’m still angry with you,” Draco mutters as he drapes his arms around Pansy’s skinny shoulders. He’d be afraid of crushing her had they not sat like this countless a time before.

“I’m fully aware.” Pansy has an arm around his waist. She pats his thigh with her other hand. “And I would like to address your concerns, as well as some newfound ones of my own, if you’ll let me, as soon as you’ve finished with your impending emotional tirade at this vicissitude.”

Draco’s jaw drops slightly and he pulls back to look her in the eye. “I am _not_ on the verge of an emotional tirade!”

Pansy shrugs. “Sounds just like something someone with a tendency for emotional tirades would say.”

Draco scowls, doesn’t speak for a moment. Then, “What are your concerns?”

Pansy arches an eyebrow. “You don’t want to talk about what just happened?”

“With Mother? And — Father?” Draco blinks. “Are you trying to depress me?”

“Point taken.” Pansy smiles faintly at him, and then Draco can pinpoint the exact moment she realizes that Draco’s junk in Potter’s boxers up against her legs is just too much. She shoves him onto the bench beside her, and while Draco whines a bit, he doesn’t blame her. He’s a bit disgusted with himself, too. “Those aren’t your usual poncy Swiss boxer briefs.”

Draco leans back against the edge of the table, crosses his legs, stares at a worn-out hole in the fabric over his left thigh. Tries to ignore a mysterious, dried ketchup-colored stain right next to it. “Are you using synecdoche to refer to the whole sleeping-with-Potter thing, or are you just mortified by my getup?”

He can feel Pansy’s eyes scan him up and down. “Both.”

“Valid.”

Draco doesn’t have to look to know Pansy is holding back, twisting like a spring coiled too tight, so he’s not frightened when she finally explodes. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she moans, betrayed.

He sighs and folds his arms over his chest. “We weren’t really on speaking terms, were we?”

Pansy’s brows lift. “You’ve only been shagging since after the wedding, then?” She gives him a smirk that makes Draco nauseous, as if she thinks they’ve both been inducted into the slagging-about-with-unbearable-Gryffindors-the-night-of-Blaise’s-wedding club.

Draco shifts guiltily, but he doesn’t look away. He thinks of Pansy Flooing into his room hours after he’d raged at Potter for nearly opening the nightstand drawer where he’d kept his mother’s letter that morning after the wedding. In hindsight, it’d been much too obvious of a hiding place, but then again, he’d never expected Potter to even enter that bedroom once Draco took up residence in it. That had also been hours after he’d rolled out of bed with Potter. But it hadn’t been the first time, had it? “Not technically speaking.” Before Pansy can string him up on the rafters by Potter’s holey boxers, he holds up his hands defensively. “My only excuse is that I was embarrassed. And he was drunk. Not when he did it, just the night before, but he could barely walk, and I had to bloody hold him up, I had to — he was in red boxers, and only red boxers, and — anyway, I was embarrassed. You’ve seen him. Wouldn’t you be?”

Pansy’s nostrils flare as she gazes at him with enacted boredom. He doesn’t think it’s merited; his rambling wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been. Draco shifts again, as if he just can’t sit his tailbone correctly against the bench, and also because he’s spilled only a drop of what lies inside his jumbled head for Pansy to see, and she’s already got him wishing he hadn’t. Her eyes narrow. “You shagged when we left you two in Paris.”

Draco scratches at the back of his neck, reminds himself that none of this matters. What does anything matter? He lifts his hands only to wriggle his fingers in a gesture that’s halfway to jazz hands before he drops them, staring resolutely ahead. “Congratulations. I really thought you would’ve picked up on it sooner.”

Pansy frowns. “I was distracted by the beginnings of my fornication with a very ginger piece of man candy.”

Draco snorts loudly. He can’t help it. He’s going to have to prepare for a barrage of insults, anyway, so he should take advantage of having the upper hand for as long as it lasts, as long as Pansy’s relationship with a Weasley is less terrifying and perverse and comical than his with Potter — not that he and Potter have any sort of _Relationship_ with a capital R.

Pansy, unsatisfied without vocal acknowledgment, huffs. “Fine. We can argue about Weasley’s well-deserved man candy status at a later time,” she says lightly, crossing her legs, and Draco ignores the fact that that should not be a legal sentence in the English language. “But hindsight is 20/20, and I should’ve known, _dammit_ , I should’ve known. When you got to the hotel — Potter was all giddy, you were all pissy ‘cos you’d let him seduce you, just like I thought you would. It makes perfect sense. Now, at least.”

Draco says nothing, simply slumps down further so the table digs into a higher notch in his spine. He realizes he’s pulled the collar of the t-shirt over his nose, whether to hide his face from Pansy’s acute gaze or to breathe in the musky, Potter-y man scent on the fabric, he’s not sure.

“You like him. Your word vomit tells me so,” states Pansy.

Draco glares. He’s quite cognizant of what she’s referring to — _damn those red boxers_ — but still, he says, “I’d like to point out that I’ve hardly vomited amidst all your yammering. And — I think you’ve reaped enough enjoyment from my mortification. I still stand behind everything I said to you after the wedding. Have you anything to say about Weasley, or perhaps the sniveling woman one floor up?”

The apples of Pansy’s cheeks and the roots of her hair, just where it sprouts from her pinking scalp, go rosy. It’s odd — most of Pansy’s emotions play across the ends of her hairs, where the heads of Medusa’s snakes would be, all part of the hive mind that feels what Pansy feels. But embarrassment and shame, rare as they are coming from Pansy, are always visible where the snakes’ tails would be. “I’m willing to admit my timing was dreadful,” she mutters. “But how was I to know accompanying your mother here on Ministry orders meant Flooing into Potter’s living room mere minutes into Granger’s cryfest?” She frowns down at her nails. “She was… doing breathing exercises, or something. I think she was trying to calm herself down before seeing Potter. Your mother scared the wits out of her —“

“Watch the veering train of thought.” His voice is muffled through the cloth.

Pansy scowls at him from beneath her thick lashes, but Draco can tell by the growing pinkness of her pale skin that she’s just stalling, buying herself time for something she really doesn’t want to say but knows she must. “I feel awful. I feel awful and I’m sorry. And I never meant to hurt anyone.” Her voice is quiet. “And — you’d think I could avoid that, because I could have anyone. I know I could. Any wizard, any witch, anyone in between, any werewolf, any vampire — I could have them at the drop of a hat. I could make a veela bend to _my_ will. My own voice could lure a siren. All I’d have to do was show the slightest interest, or wear a tight top, or…”

Draco lets the shirt fall away from his face. “You could have anyone. I get it.”

“Good. So — yes. I could have anyone. And they’d call me pretty, or buy me shit I don’t need, but.” Her full lips purse into a thin pucker of a frown. “‘Ron’s the last person on the planet I’d ever sleep with.’ That’s what I always thought. And don’t you ever tell this to a soul, Draco, or I’ll gut you, hex your guts, and sew you back up so they eat you from the inside —“ Draco’s not afraid, just unsettled. “— But when I’m with him, it _feels_ like we’re the last people on Earth, so goddammit, I slept with him, and goddammit, I liked it. I liked him.” She releases a long, hot breath, as if she’d been holding it. Her hands clutch at her knees. Draco holds her tenacious gaze, right up until the laughter bubbles out of him and he has to clutch the collar of the t-shirt to his face again so it doesn’t echo up the stairs to the second floor. Slowly, Pansy’s lips quirk up at the corners, and she swats Draco’s shoulder before taking that very arm and hugging it to her chest as she huddles in close to his side on the bench.

“Merlin, you’re fucked,” Draco breathes. With a grimace, he reconsiders his words. “We’re both fucked.”

He can feel the pointy tip of Pansy’s upturned nose press to his shoulder. “But you have to know, Draco, that I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you. And Granger, she’s — she’s a good person. She’s been the hands down winner of the annual world’s most irritating wench award since the year she was conceived, but she’s a good person. She’s nice to people. And she knows about things, important things.” She sighs as Draco lays his head against the top of hers. Not out of pity or sympathy, but because he needs the closeness and he’s missed his best friend. “Honestly, with how much he talks about her, I can’t even say that I didn’t realize I’d be dragging her down with us. She was always abstract. Always in the same mood, happy bossing everyone around, bouncing about Headquarters whenever she came to visit. But it’s ‘cos she didn’t know. Seeing her all snotty and weepy and gross, and in that terrible jumper…”

Draco raises an eyebrow and pats Pansy on the top of the head. “So you _can_ feel remorse, and not just self-interested guilt. Fascinating.” Then he rises up, clears his throat. “Okay. You should go speak with her,” he advises with as much friendly, _this is in your best interest_ authority he can muster.

Pansy is incredulous. “What? With Granger?” Her eyes track Draco as he heads to the kitchen door. “And just where do you think you’re going?”

“Home,” Draco says, before hesitating. That’s not right. “The Manor,” he corrects. “I just… need to.” He exhales, claps his hands together twice. Iggy and Tilly zap into sight with nearly synchronized timing. “We’re going to the Manor, dear ones.” Elation dawns on their wrinkly, wide-eyed faces. “Please meet me there, preferably with some clothes from my closet here that don’t make me look as if I’ve been trapped in Potter’s cellar for three years.” Draco angles his head toward Pansy. “And you. Please talk to Granger.” He’s out the door so fast that her shrill protest is muted by the kitchen door closing behind him.

*** 

Apologies likely won’t do any good. After all, Pansy is a conniving cunt for whom Granger has openly declared her hatred. And while she may have to Petrify her to get her to listen without Granger starting a fistfight or a duel, she knows they cannot move past this while there are words unsaid between them. Ron’s either heard his fair share that morning or none at all — Pansy’s not sure what card Granger might have played with him; the prospective plaintiff’s attorney with the oversaturated vocabulary or the silent treatment. Both have their merits.

Pansy breathes in through her nose, out through her lips. Then she stands, tugs down on her skirt a bit, regretting that she didn’t dress more Granger-like in an effort to gain her respect, but perhaps Granger would appreciate — if that’s even the right word — her authenticity and lack of sycophancy. Then again, Ron had always liked her skirts.

Potter busts through the kitchen door with such urgency that it slams against the wall. For just a moment, all of her inner fury at herself, at Ron, at the world rises to the surface and comes to a head, and she hates Potter for his inordinately dramatic entrances and of bloody course if she were to be doing her job as an Auror, escorting Narcissa Malfoy to see her son after months spent apart, it would be at Potter’s house that she would be stepping on the toes of her lover’s girlfriend just after he’d spilled to her the secret of his infidelity. Potter and his rotten luck. It’s rubbing off. Her lips twitch resentfully at him.

Potter is unfazed by everything but the lack of Draco in the kitchen, apparently. “Where’s Malfoy?” he asks, taking a further step inside.

“I don’t know,” Pansy lies. “You’re officially relieved from your nannying duties given recent developments, Potter, so it shouldn’t matter.” She stares at him, scrutinizing every detail of his incorrigible, disheveled state — the incorrectly buttoned shirt has not been righted, not even by Granger — and she’s tempted, _so_ tempted, like a kid being offered a lolly to get into the sketchy but enticing van that is _harass Harry Potter about his feelings for Draco_ , but she grasps at self-restraint. Another time. Soon, for sure, but another time. “Well, I suppose it does to you.” Her lips curl up snidely, but only for a second. “But he is a grown man and can wander as he pleases. Where’s Granger?”

Potter’s throat bobs. His eyes narrow. Pansy knows that he’s wondering about just how much she knows. And though all she really does know of is Paris and red boxers and that one or more of them is smitten, she can sure as hell act like she knows everything. “Upstairs. She’s sleeping,” he answers eventually, though he still appears skeptical, as if Pansy might pull her wand on him from her leg garter at any moment. Also, Potter is thick as ever. There’s no way Granger is asleep.

“Alright.” She tucks her hair behind her ears. “My autobiographical obituary is in the top left drawer of my desk at Headquarters. It’s locked, but charmed to open if you tell it ‘spank me, Mama.’ So in the case that Granger does end up killing me, I hope you’ll let me pass on with at least the satisfaction of knowing that you spoke those words, Potter, because you’re the only one but me that knows them now, and I swear you’ll never live it down if some _Prophet_ rat writes me a hateful obit.”

Potter opens his mouth and no words come out, just the way she likes. Pansy walks toward him, but only to get to the door. “Tell me you’re not going up there to start a catfight,” he mutters once she’s passed him.

“How very misogynistic of you, Potter. And no. I’m going to apologize.”

“I just meant —! She’s in an emotional state right now! I just thought you might go up there and start your — your usual Pansymonium, or rub it in her face —”

“I know what you meant.”

Potter’s jaw clenches, as do his hands at his sides. They relax momentarily, though, and he just shakes his head. “ _Mama_?” he asks then, nose crinkling in something like repulsion.

“Only a select few are allowed to call me that. You’re not one of them.” Pansy turns around and pushes the kitchen door open, striding out. “Just remember the obit, Potter!”

As she’s clunking her way up the stairs, thick-soled Mary Janes heavy, she hears the distinct lick of green flames from Potter’s parlour, and hopes for Draco’s sake that it’s not the Manor to which he’s just Flooed.

*** 

Harry stares into the face of the Queen herself, dashing this time in a cornflower blue two-piece set where she waves regal but frozen from the calendar on the wall.

The flat of Blaise and Paloma Zabini has hardly changed since he’d last visited (does witnessing a dream count as a visit?). The same funky tree trunk table dominates the living room, with coffee table books scattered across its surface — Mid-Century Modern Design, Recipes by a Vegetarian Veela — but topped by the book Harry had last seen Malfoy holding in that very room, the wedding scrapbook. Beside the calendar featuring Her Majesty, a newly-added picture frame shows Blaise and Paloma grinning and clinking together glasses of mead at their wedding. Harry sneezes, soot flowering into the air from his impulsive Floo travel.

“Holy shit,” he gasps as he’s bowled over by a warm, heavy beast that knocks Harry off his feet and onto the plush shag rug. A wet nose hastily drags over his neck, his face, and then a fat, pink tongue is swiping across his cheek and leaving a snail trail of doggy saliva on one of his lenses. “Gah,” Harry breathes, which is a mistake, because the dog licks inside his mouth when it opens.

“Oh, Tank! _Tank!_ She’s so well-trained, I don’t know what’s gotten into her. Perhaps the sitter didn’t keep her as active as we thought — that tip was mighty undeserved, if that be.” Harry peers through one clean and one slobbery lens into the face of Paloma, his current savior, who hauls the beast by her collar — bloody _Tank_ — off his body with ease. “Why, Harry! Harry Potter! What a pleasant surprise!” She grins, the personification of the color yellow, and nudges the Pit Bull in the opposite direction. She obeys and saunters off despite her obvious interest in Harry.

Harry’s gone mad. He’s clearly gone mad. Why did he come here? He smiles sheepishly at Paloma, who then hauls him onto his feet by his hand like he’s light as a feather.

“Oh, dear. Here, let me.” She takes his glasses, blinding him briefly, and when she returns them to his face, clean and wiped, he can see. “Harry,” she says again, placing her hands on her wide hips, only more accentuated by the fifties-style white dress she’s in, dotted with little lemons. She’s tan, tanner than she usually is, and her nose is dotted with brownish little freckles. “To what do I owe this lovely visit?”

Harry coughs, ninety percent certain he looks like a wreck just with the morning he’s had. “Hi, Paloma. I just wanted to see —“ He gazes past her shoulder, cranes his neck. No Blaise in sight yet. “First of all, I’m sorry for barging in. I should’ve told you in advance that I was coming. It was — sort of a spur of the moment decision.” He smiles halfheartedly, then blinks suddenly down at his chest, because Paloma’s fingers are there as she silently tuts and weaves the buttons of Harry’s shirt into their rightful holes. “Er. How was your honeymoon?”

“Oh, sweet Harry. Sit, sit, come sit.” Once she’s finished with his shirt, she ushers him toward the loveseat in which Malfoy had sat in his memory, in which Tank had been considerably more peaceful. “Can I get you a drink? Or lemonade? Hummus and pita?”

Harry’s lips flicker at a smile as he sits down, shakes his head, grabs Paloma by the wrist before she can putter off to the kitchen to retrieve for him something he doesn’t need. Well — a drink might do him good. But he doesn’t tell her that. “No, no thanks,” he murmurs, and she smiles as he lets go, sinks down across from him onto the velvet sofa opposite him.

“The honeymoon, you said? Oh, it was fantastic. We’ve only just returned this morning, which is why Tank is so wired, I’d imagine.” Paloma tilts her head to the side, crosses her legs at the knees, and laces her fingers there. “You simply must visit Kalamata if you get the chance, Harry. These new sun potions on the market these days…” She holds out soft, plump arms, twists them absently as she admires her golden skin. “Even someone as fair as me can get a nice, safe bronzing out there.” She lets out a good-natured giggle, and Harry tries to smile in return. She sees through it, because without preamble, she says, “You’re here to see Blaise, aren’t you?”

Harry, who hadn’t exactly been comfortable before, feels like the supple leather of the loveseat has turned to a craggy pile of rocks beneath him. “Yes,” he sighs apologetically. “I’m sorry. That — that doesn’t mean I don’t want to hear about your honeymoon, though.”

Paloma looks at him kindly nonetheless. “Oh, Harry. They were all over the newsstands when we got back. Still are, I’m sure.”

Harry is puzzled, but only shortly. “Who?”

“Draco’s parents.” Paloma shrugs. “I figured you would be around to ask at some point.”

Harry’s fingers curl into the seat cushion uneasily. “Ask about…”

Paloma sighs in a fond way, shakes her head as she pins Harry with a knowing look. “Harry Potter, you don’t have to play dumb around me. Your Memory Trustee contract is dissolved, isn’t it, now that Lucius is dead and Narcissa is found?” Then she watches him tentatively, as if assessing whether or not he’d hit his head hard when Tank had knocked him to the floor.

Harry wants to say that he isn’t _playing_ dumb, that he simply _is_ , because it’s been ages since he’d been bound to the magical contract, since he’d fallen into the Pensieve and into Zabini’s mind on countless an occasion, since he’d begun to accumulate questions to the point of bursting with nobody to legally speak to. He’s struck dumb by her. Harry thinks that all of his questions, glued together by his guilt of knowing, by the fact that Malfoy doesn’t know that he knows but Paloma does, have formed an entirely separate compartment somewhere in the back of his brain that he’d become numb to once the memories went from being an alternate universe to something close to his own reality. Close to. They weren’t the same, he has to remind himself. “I,” he says awkwardly, his teeth clacking as he closes his mouth to try and churn out a sensible response from the depths of his conscience.

“You,” murmurs Paloma. She sits up, uncrosses her legs, and leans forward so she can speak in a voice even gentler to Harry. It almost feels conspiratorial, as if they’re companions, as if Paloma doesn’t mind opening the vault to her secrets for Harry to see, as if she had never fallen victim to the Harry-frenzy that swept through Hogwarts while he was in eighth year, but simply viewed him as a person and a friend, and a slightly dim one at that. “Yes, Harry, don’t look so surprised. I did receive all O’s. I’m not stupid. I knew about Draco long before Blaise put a name to him, and I know they were involved once upon a time.” She laces her fingers together in her lap. “Blaise is my soulmate. I know more about him than he does.”

The loveseat feels now like a sinkhole that might swallow Harry up if he stays seated. He doesn’t move, though. It’s a miracle, given his oratory history in the past five minutes, that he’s able to get out more than two words. “You were —“ He frowns, confused. “You were okay with — them? What they were doing?” If this is what Paloma wants to talk about, Harry will take it. He doesn’t feel particularly like he’s allowed to pry, so even if the question on the tip of his tongue is _why why why, why did Blaise let me see all of that_ , he walks at Paloma’s pace.

Paloma smiles, shakes her head so the layers in her blonde barrel curls cascade unevenly over her shoulders. “Of course not. We weren’t serious, not at first, while at school. But then it became two years together, three years together. We never explicitly said that we were exclusive, not even then. At first, he didn’t tell me where he’d disappear off to for hours at a time. Then he told me it was to see Draco, who was still on house arrest.” She lifts her shoulders slightly, lets them drop. “Men always think they get away with things. He thought he composed himself enough before coming back to me that I wouldn’t be able to tell he’d been fucking his ex-Death Eater friend. A boy, at that.” Harry’s brow is furrowed but Paloma just looks at him with amusement shining in her eyes. “But when things got serious between him and I, he told me everything. It’s like it all came spilling out at once. He told me he was shagging a Malfoy, a Malfoy who also happened to be his closest, dearest friend, but aside from that, it didn’t mean anything. Not to Blaise, at least. I didn’t know about Draco’s feelings until after.” She bites her lip, and her jaw moves from side to side, as if in thought. “Anyway, he told me he’d just broken that off with Draco. And then he proposed to me a short while later.”

Harry nods. He doesn’t know what to say, because when it comes to this, all he knows is what he’s actually seen. “That… that was one of the memories he gave me. Their, er.” He clears his throat, not looking at Paloma. “Last time.”

Paloma seems bemused by Harry’s discomfort. “Harry Potter, you don’t have to shield me from what you know. I know it all, too. That’s — I’ve seen it, too. That memory you speak of.” When Harry’s eyes widen, she laughs. “I thought you’d find it disturbing. But I’m glad for it, glad that I saw it. I trust my husband, and everything I needed to know was in that one memory. I’ve seen others, but that was the most important, I think.”

“Everything like what?” Harry asks, as if in a trance, nails curling into the beard growing on his jaw.

“That Blaise loves me. That Draco was clear-as-day in love with him — that’s the reason I can be nice and forgive him for calling me… what was it? A birdbrained cow?” She smirks, raspberry lips in a crescent moon shape. “That he cared for Draco deeply, that he was attracted to him bodily, but that being with him in that way at that terrible time had made him like Draco’s crutch. He was… not right in the head, I believe, after the war, for a bit. And Blaise wanted more than anything to make him happy. Just… being both a capricious teenaged boy with an appetite and a loyal friend got him into a bit of a rut.”

Harry wants to believe her, he does. Who wouldn’t believe anything Paloma said? Her blue eyes, which he’d always thought to be shallow, were deep with honesty, and her plain face dotted with innocence as much as her lemon dress. And it makes perfect sense, mind for a few incidences. But the pill is too big to swallow. It tastes too sour. Perhaps she hadn’t seen quite everything. And after so long of shutting up, Harry doesn’t.

“Paloma, I think you should know that — I’m not sure exactly what it was… An engagement dinner, maybe? He was —“

“Harry,” Paloma laughs. “Oh, Harry, I was _there_. I felt that all in real time. I suppose I should’ve mentioned that Blaise has sworn he’s been physically true to me these past couple years. He’s admitted to…” she trails off. “I don’t know. Temptation, let’s say. Emotion. But from what he tells me, he’s never given in.” She seems to doubt her soul-bond-confidence for a moment, because her eyes flicker to Harry with a grain of uncertainty. “Does that — does that sound about right to you, Harry?”

He thinks of Blaise’s offer in the toilets at the engagement party that had ended in a yelling match. He thinks of what might’ve happened had Harry not followed Draco and Zabini into the toilets at the wedding. Be that as it may, Ron and Pansy would no doubt have interrupted, but something had been off. Physically true, though, he has indeed remained as far as Harry knows. “Sounds right, yeah.” His voice is distant.

The healthy color returns to Paloma’s face again and she nods absently. “Right.” Then she squeezes her knees, scrunches up her face sheepishly. “I don’t suppose you even wanted to know all that, Harry. It’s like I’ve trapped you here, asked you drink from my firehose —“

“Potter?”

Both of their heads snap toward Blaise, just having emerged from the fireplace by the looks of the jacket out of which he’s shaking soot.

Harry’s on his feet before he can think to get up. “Zabini,” he says. Harry can count on one hand the number of conversations they’ve held just the two of them. The first was snarky and ambiguous, the second friendly but sly, and the third vaguely threatening. He never knows where they stand.

Blaise’s eyebrows twitch upward at Harry as he stalks over to his wife, whom he bends over to kiss on the cheek. He doesn’t lose sight of Harry once, and gives him that winning, relaxed smile Harry’s never been able to trust. “I have this… this sneaking suspicion that I’ve walked in on you two gossiping about me,” he says with a chuckle, wriggling his fingers of his right hand in the air as if grappling for something invisible. “I can feel it.”

Paloma scoffs softly, tugs Blaise onto the couch. Her eyes implore Harry to sit down as well, but he doesn’t do so until Blaise seems settled. “Well, would that be so out of turn, given the news and all?” She laces her fingers with Blaise’s on the sofa between them, though there really isn’t much room there.

Blaise hardly reacts to her words, eyes boring into Harry. “Nah,” he settles on, punctuates it with a careless shrug of his shoulder. Then he turns toward his wife. “Craziest thing, though, isn’t it? I don’t imagine Draco is all that torn up about Lucius, but… his mother, on the other hand.”

Paloma pouts and rubs the outside of Blaise’s forearm with her free hand.

“I ought to go see him.” Blaise’s eyes flicker back to Harry. “How convenient that I have his housemate right here, though.” His gaze, curious but dark and unreadable, is contradicted by his lazy smile. “Convenient, but odd. You aren’t tracking his every step, Potter? Making sure he doesn’t do anything rash?”

Harry jumps to defend himself, but only Pansy’s lame words come to mind. _He is a grown man and can wander as he pleases._ Which, sure, he can do. Evidently, however, Harry’s moral compass goes haywire when Malfoy disappears, because when he’s not rooted to Auror Headquarters or his home by Malfoy’s presence, he’s metaphorically kicking down the door to the Zabini household. “I-I’m not his Auror guard any longer,” he stammers.

“Blaise,” Paloma reprimands, batting her blue eyes.

“Are you not?” Blaise hums. “Then — _oh_. Oh, I see why I’m the topic of conversation.” He smiles again. “You can finally talk about my little gift to you, Potter. Contract’s up, is it?”

Harry can’t resist. “Your _gift_ was completely unwarranted, Zabini. All I needed was — was the one memory, the one from the night of the breakout, to exonerate you both. The evidence you gave was… was not only completely fucking inessential to the case, but — but —“ Now Harry’s grasping at the air, feeling a bit hot in the face.

“Paloma, love?” Blaise’s voice drips with honey, gooey and oozing in the tense void that Harry’s created but unsuccessfully filled.

“Yes?”

“It seems that Potter’s got a problem with me.” Blaise detangles their fingers, folding his muscled arms over his chest. Harry squints. Physically, the only advantage that Blaise has on him is his height. Magically, though, oho, Zabini is dead meat. “Why don’t you leave us to talk it out?”

Though Zabini’s eyes don’t stray from Harry, Harry does chance a glance at Paloma, whose stern look is doing Blaise no good going unacknowledged. “Only words,” she importunes. “Or else I’ll have to contact the Aur —“ Her chuckle is strained when she recalls Harry. Then she gathers her lemon skirts, flashes a little smile at the man across from her husband, and is gone.

Silence until her footsteps fade away. Blaise appears too self-satisfied for Harry’s liking. “I just wanted to give context, Potter.”

Harry blinks, jaw ajar. “Context for _what_? Shit I would’ve never noticed in that first memory if it wasn’t for all the rest? Zabini, you’re — fuck.” He blinks, shakes his head. “Draco doesn’t know you did this, I’m positive of that, and I’ve seen so much. I’ve seen things he’d _never_ want me to see. You didn’t actually read the VROMFE document, did you? If you did, you would’ve known that I was obligated to view every damn shred of memory you gave me.”

“I did realize that at the time. But I think you would’ve watched them anyway, Potter, just out of sheer, tainted curiosity.”

Harry’s frown deepens. “That is not true,” he says slowly. It’d taken him weeks to get through the several he’d been given. “And — you know, for how much you claim to care about Draco, to convince your wife of your purely honorable intentions, that was a shitty thing to do without his knowing. It’s not just your life, Blaise. It’s not yours to share. It’s his, too.”

“And now it’s yours.” Blaise doesn’t bat an eye, drums his fingertips against the armrest at his side. “And Potter, I do love Draco. I care about him deeply. I would sacrifice what matters most to me if it meant making him happy. Which means I was ready to sacrifice his trust in me to make you a gullible pawn in my plan.”

“Plan?” Harry deadpans. He’s heard enough of brilliant plans since Draco’s letter shenanigans — which, much to his relief, he really doesn’t need to reveal to anyone anymore, does he?

“Yes. May I speak freely?” Blaise doesn’t wait for a response. Harry chews in annoyance at the inside of his lower lip. “Oh, of course I can. You’ve seen it all. You saw it, Potter, saw Draco act all loony after being holed up for years. He professed his love for me, cried like a baby.” As much as Zabini tries to sound insincere and careless, his voice acquires a rough edge recalling the memories of Draco they both share. “And — and I think it could’ve been real, but not at that stage. If I hadn’t fallen in love with my wife, if I had — well, started to see Draco during sex as something more than a warm body, it might’ve become something. But it was all in Draco’s head. You know how dramatic he can be, Potter. I was there for him, physically and emotionally, and he latched onto me. I can’t say I didn’t enjoy the attention —“ Harry glowers at this, “— because he’s wonderful, he can be so wonderful, and I love him to bits, but.” He sighs. “When Lucius broke out, I thought it was — honestly, I was grateful for it. Because I had to haul arse to the Ministry, and whaddaya know? _Who, Blaise, other than you, could ever draw so much obsession and passion from Draco?_ And there you were, in all your horribly dressed, wealthy-but-humbly-secondhand glory, the Wizarding World’s sweetheart and most eligible bachelor, Draco’s Hogwarts nemesis, frolicking about with that scar on show and alternating between playing good cop and bad cop and shagging everyone with a heartbeat because none of them were truly right enough to tie you down.” Harry remains silent, though he’s long since affixed Zabini with an odd, mildly frightened stare. Zabini examines his clean fingernails, sighing as if it’s laborious to continue. “And so I passed on my most valuable memories to you, Potter, knowing you would take good care of them. I never found out if you were able to watch them before it even happened, but I’d like to think I had a hand in your overeager offer to take Draco into your home the very next day after my interrogation. After that, I figured all you had to see was the fact that he wasn’t always a one-dimensional prick, as well as his very cute arse, and then the rest would be history.”

It’s the understatement of the century, at least of Harry’s very Malfoy-centric century that’s last approximately two months. Or has it lasted twelve years? It’s debatable. If it’d been Zabini’s goal to get Malfoy to fall for Harry the way he had for himself, it was proving more difficult than he’d thought. Harry takes a mental step back, because bloody hell, that shouldn’t be the first concern on his mind. “What is wrong with you?” he seethes. “You just — you think you’re smooth with your fancy words, but all I really heard was that you found it reasonable to treat Draco like a fucking — like a fucking puppet, to show me things he’d never consent to me seeing — what, in the name of _love_?” He laughs manically. Zabini belongs in the Janus Thickey Ward. “Well, okay, kudos to you, because I fell for your stupid plan, and maybe I was always bound to even if you didn’t come in with your frankly insane meddling, but it hasn’t worked, and all you’ve done is likely lose your best mate and any trust he’s ever had in you, or me, and possibly anyone.”

“Give it time,” Blaise says. Harry realizes he’s peering down at him over the tree stump table between them, which means he must’ve stood up. Zabini is still on the sofa, gestures easy and balletic but dominating still with his widely-planted feet and brown gaze. Harry thinks he’s won, because Zabini’s calm, rhythmic breaths stall for a moment, but then he brings out that cool, laissez-faire smile and he brings it with a vengeance. “Listen, Potter. I wasn’t playing with him. We were so close. I was getting married. It wasn’t that I wanted him squared away so he wouldn’t be alone, or so I could sip my whiskey and watch you two like Crups in a Crupfight — which, admittedly, I did do at times, but only because the opportunity unavoidably arose with you two being the way that you are. I wasn’t leaving him forever. Pansy and I would always care about him. But I wanted him to feel what I felt with Paloma. He never — he was always working at his nonsensical job, he never met anyone. You’re not special, Potter, you’re not special at all aside from the attention Draco’s given you over the years. And you were just there. Draco — he’s easy to fall in love with when you see past the high-and-mighty front. More so now than ever. Pansy’s been there.” Harry’s scowl fades slightly just as Blaise’s smile dips. _I’ve been there_ , Harry expects him to say, because he swears that’s what his eyes are screaming, but it never comes. “But you got lucky, Potter, this time. What if Draco’s parents had never run off? I’d still be married come today. For all we know, Pansy could’ve set Draco up with that American twat in the Aurors. They could’ve eloped to Nebraska, or wherever he’s from.”

Harry can feel the fight pulsing in his blood, but like a sleeping dragon, he thinks it’s dormant for now. He lowers himself to the very edge of the loveseat, watching Blaise through the mess that is his fringe. “New York,” he corrects mindlessly, then wishes he hadn’t. Clem doesn’t matter; he doesn’t now and he never would. To think that Zabini believes Draco would have settled for him — might he have? He removes his glasses, rubs vigorously at his right eye. “I think you’re sick,” he mumbles. “And we’re not friends. And…” He drops his fist from his eye, glaring at the blurry shape of the ruddy brick fireplace. “I fucking hate you for this, because when Draco finds out —“

“If,” Zabini murmurs.

Harry replaces his glasses. “Sorry?”

“If he finds out.”

Harry’s hand slips to his thigh, feeling for his wand in his jeans pocket. Either Zabini doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. “You don’t intend for him to find out,” he says lowly. In his mind it had been a question, but Zabini’s unyielding expression tells him that there is no ambiguity to his words.

“Like I said, Potter, I was willing to sacrifice Draco’s trust in me to make him happy. I’ll admit it wasn’t the most genius of ideas, but I felt, at least, that I wasn’t standing by and letting him go on the way he was. That doesn’t mean I want to lose his trust. Or lose his trust in you.” Zabini’s fingers make soft noises against the velvet as they tap a few times and then go still. “And I don’t think you want that, either.”

Sleeping dragon awoken. Harry stands. “You’re mad,” he says quietly, shakes his head, exhales loudly out his nose. “I — Maybe you can live with yourself forever, having done something like this. I can’t.”

“So you’re gonna tell him?” Zabini rolls his eyes. “Sure you will.”

“I will,” Harry rasps in protest. Zabini smiles. The problem is that he doesn’t know when, he doesn’t know how. And doing so, telling Draco, could easily lose him for both Harry and Zabini. That’s the only consequence he cares about. Pansy could kill them both, but even that is secondary. The thought of Malfoy hating him — not in the prankish, sneering _Scared, Potter?_ way of hating him that he’s not sure ever stopped, but in a hurt, mistrustful way that burns even more after the good little things they’ve had — it makes his stomach lurch sickeningly, his heart constrict, and arguably, it could hurt more than the guilt of Zabini’s memories that he’s been holding onto for the past months.

“Potter,” Blaise breaks into his conscience. Harry’s eyes snap to him. He opens his mouth before Blaise can.

“Honestly, I’d just like to know what the hell you thought you were doing with Draco at your wedding,” Harry says blankly.

Blaise is caught off guard, so Harry stands up straighter. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You go on about your insane plan to set Draco up with me or with anyone for the sake of his happiness, and the moment he’s, I don’t know, enjoying himself with Creasey for everyone on the dance floor to see, you drag him off to go yell at him about it?” Harry’s brows jerk upward. He leaves out the fact that he didn’t particularly love that himself. It’s irrelevant.

A good three seconds pass before Blaise forms an answer, though it comes out smooth as ever. “He was embarrassing himself _and_ me, snogging him like that.”

“Yeah? So were half of your Slytherin mates, then, with Paloma’s bloody Brady Bunch of blonde cousins. You can’t have missed Goyle.”

Zabini smiles at him bitterly. “I don’t know what you’re getting at, Potter.”

“I think you do.” Harry swallows, hand still glued to his thigh where he can feel the shape of his wand through his jeans. “And — and I’m going to find a way to tell him. Just thought I should warn you before I went off and did something that could get both of us into deep shit.” He starts toward the fireplace before he does something he’ll regret, because his list is too long already. He’s reaching for the Floo powder in the hollow of what he thinks is an amethyst geode — he wonders offhandedly what Malfoy thinks of Paloma’s taste in decor — when a large hand around his wrist stops him.

“I didn’t do this so you could hurt him, Potter,” Blaise mutters, standing close. It doesn’t take much effort for Harry to wrench his hand from his grip.

“That’s the last thing I want to do.” As Harry closes his fingers over a handful of powder, he looks at Zabini. Instead of the expected smugness or anger or intimidation, his face betrays him, for it’s nervousness that Harry finds there. _But he has to know_ , Harry doesn’t say, just sighs and tosses the powder into the fireplace.

*** 

When Pansy nudges the door to Potter’s bedroom open, she’s lucky her catlike reflexes rescue her from whatever hex zooms in an orange flash of light just past her head. She pastes herself to the wall outside Potter’s bedroom, breathing heavily and eyeing the door. Then she pulls her wand from her garter. _Let’s try this again_.

She leaps into the doorway, shield charm up, and manages to magically block three of the spells Granger shoots her way and manually dodge the other two. “Granger!” she shouts over the electrified sizzling of spells hitting her shield. “Merlin, Granger, just for a second, would you —“ Pansy can barely see for all the blasts of light, but in the narrow window between dropping her shield charm and evading a seventh hex, she hollers, “I don’t want to do this, but, _Petrificus Totalus!_ ” and swings her arm out in Granger’s direction. The room fills pregnantly with silence, and Pansy just breathes, wand arm dangling by her side, spots of light still glowing in her vision. She clears her throat and marches to the bed, where Granger is now a stiff board against Potter’s shabby sheets; eyes bloodshot, surrounded by balled-up tissues, the tip of her nose red from blowing. “I didn’t come here to fight you.” She lowers herself onto the edge of the bed, hands on her knees, and watches the woman beside her. “I know I don’t deserve your audience, but I’d still like to speak to you. About… things. And if at any point I cross the line in your book, whatever line you’ve drawn, it’s fine. I’ve told Potter about my autobiographical obituary, and while I won’t have lived to see the legalization of same-sex marriage in England nor have I been the best woman in Draco’s future wedding, at least Blaise has been married and Draco and Potter have shagged and I’ve perfected my Hugh Grant impression to immaculacy, so I do believe I’d be fine with dying at this point in my life.” When Granger says nothing, Pansy sighs deeply, and then, “Oh, right. _Finite_.”

Granger scrambles to sit upright. Her hair makes a sound that reminds Pansy of rustling leaves. She tugs the blankets over her lap, bleary eyes flickering to the tissues, which she Vanishes swiftly.

Pansy looks on, lips pursed. “How did you know it was me?” She nods toward the door. There’s a scorch mark on the blue wall beside the doorway, and from the faintly acrid smell in the room, Pansy thinks it’s fresh.

Granger clears her throat, and Pansy can literally see the mental process play across her face that it takes to affect her usual, imperial tone. “I didn’t. But I told Harry to knock in Vivaldi to let me know it was him.” She sniffs, gazes at the blanket covering her thighs. “You didn’t knock.”

Pansy squints, raises a dubious brow. “You really think Potter could knock a Vivaldi tune?”

Much to her shock, Granger laughs wearily, wetly. “No. But I’d be able to tell it was him trying.”

Pansy frowns in thoughtful consideration, but says nothing. Bollocks. She’d always thought she’d been at her best when improvising, but perhaps that’s just because she’d never tried the alternative.

“Is…” Granger starts, then rubs a bony, little hand over half of her face, brushing bangs from her eyes that are in desperate need of trimming. “I’m fairly certain I’ve finished with the name-calling, so, I’m sorry, but is there anything else I can call you? Is your given name actually Pansy, or is it — I don’t know, Pandora? Persephone? I really cannot take you seriously if I’m addressing you as… _Pansy_.”

Pansy blinks blankly at Granger. “No.”

Granger shrugs, knots her fingers together in her lap, sniffles again. “Okay. Just thought I’d ask.” In the ensuing silence, their eyes meet, and it’s after a stretch of distasteful glaring that Granger speaks again. “Well, Pansy, what is it you wanted to tell me?”

Pansy tears her eyes from Granger. With a glance down at her green pleated plaid skirt, at her Mary Janes dangling over a foot above the floor, she feels small. Her schoolgirl goth look is most striking in its irony, but it doesn’t feel very ironic right then. “Look, Granger, I think you’re annoying as hell, but I know I’ve done you wrong —“

“I’d sure hope so,” Granger gibes.

“… yeah. So, I know I’ve gone and pissed all over your favorite fire hydrant, and that was really fucking wrong of me. I don’t know how much Ron’s told you, or what you’ve decided to do, but I apologize for my contribution to this massive load of Hippogriff crap, and — yes, you may be annoying as hell, but if there’s anything I can do for you, I’ll bloody well do it. I really… really never thought you’d find out, but now you have, and it changes things.” She stares through her fringe at Potter’s floor, lips pursed. It’s best she doesn’t bring her own feelings into this. No one but Draco, no one, will know what she’d said just downstairs.

“Either you’re a brilliant liar or that was genuine, so,” Granger says, exhaling shakily. Pansy feels the slightest wind of her breath against her neck. “I’ll accept it.” When Pansy looks up, disbelieving, Granger is watching her. “You know, I like my life, Pansy. I like what I’m doing, and I like my circle of friends, and I love my — my boyfriend. And I thought,” she smiles sadly, “for quite a while, that I even liked you. I admired you from what I heard from Ron and his coworkers because you reminded me of me. And I was glad that you were straightening him out at work — all the male Aurors, really, including Harry, because they can be so bloody arrogant. And Draco — I like Draco, and he’s your very good friend, so I liked you, too. Little did I know, you were just sleeping with all of them, and while that’s fine and none of my business, there was a tiny part of me that was hoping you’d used your intellect and personality to demand their respect, not…” Her expression is awkward, bashful, “bossed them about in bed.” Her eyes wander briefly until she shakes her head, claps her hands onto the blanket covering her knees. “That’s beside the point. I like my life, and I don’t want a thing to change because I love Ron and I know he loves me, and that you’re just a pretty, keen whore of a blemish on our good lives who’s managed to pop up in the time that I’ve been stressed and preoccupied.”

Pansy holds up a hand. “Alright, yeah, a blemish, a whore, I’ll take it. And I won’t argue that Ron doesn’t love you, he talks of you all the damn time, but — _girl_.” She sighs. “That you’re stressed and preoccupied doesn’t excuse him from sleeping with me.”

“I like my life,” Granger says, stiffer this time. A crease forms between her brows and her eyes glimmer with another round of the waterworks. “And I don’t want to leave Ron. He begged me to stay, but I know if I do, he’ll be guilty like a kicked dog for the rest of our lives. He’ll be meek, afraid I’ll bring up his tryst with you and use it against him. I just want him to be his normal self. To be us.”

“Okay,” Pansy says, drawing out the vowels.

“So I’d like for you to request a partner exchange at work. I know the Head Auror didn’t like Ron and Harry together, but I think it’d be a no-brainer switch, given that you’re already acquainted with Clem Creasey.” Granger says _acquainted_ with the viciousness with which Pansy and Draco had once spoken the word _Mudblood_. “And then, I’d like for you to pretend that all of this never happened. I don’t want you to speak a word to him. I’ll Obliviate Ron. I’ve… I’ve got experience with that. He won’t remember you, nor will he need to, because you’ll never cross paths unless absolutely necessary, at which point you will be polite and distant and give none of your habitual snark, because…” Granger grimaces. “Because he’s clearly drawn to that.” She’s silent, then, and Pansy’s lips wobble, her throat swells up. She says nothing, either. _Pull yourself together, goddammit._ “That’s all I ask of you,” Granger whispers.

“Granger, you can’t just let him get off so easy,” says Pansy, shaking her head as she angles herself toward the woman on the bed. “I didn’t put a spell on him or slip him any potions. He was, y’know, rather drunk at the wedding, but so was I, and he consciously gave in to me _always_.”

Granger shakes her head vehemently, another rustle of crinkling autumn leaves. “I don’t care,” she snarls, and she’s suddenly breathing fast, labored, continuing to whip her hair about her shoulders, near-convulsive. “I don’t care what anyone thinks, least of all you. This is what I want to do, and that’s what’s going to happen, if you’ve got any shred of dignity left in your heartless, sexed up body.”

Pansy sets Ron aside in her mind temporarily. She hadn’t seen that coming. She stares at Granger, and though she’s fairly sure she won’t be slaughtered because Miss Perfect’s plan seems to involve her living — though her death might make things considerably easier, she doesn’t care to make Granger aware of this — she could very well be grievously injured. “I’ll do it. Of course I will,” she mutters. “I’ll put in the request today.”

“Thank you,” sighs Granger.

Pansy looks at her. “Please don’t thank me.”

Granger huffs, folds her arms over her chest in an _I’ll do what I want_ way. Seconds lapse, and Pansy’s still studying her with a mixture of pity, confusion, and inexplicable resentment when Granger leans over and grasps Pansy by the cheeks to kiss her for all of five seconds. Pansy is motionless, eyes blown wide open, fixated on the blur of Granger’s face literally plastered to hers, wiry fringe curling through Pansy’s silken one to scratch at her forehead. Their lips part audibly in the silent room, and Granger settles back onto her pity throne, comforter gathered up in her lap.

“What the hell was that for?” Pansy demands, touching her lips with the pads her fingers. It — well. She would say she’d never thought of Granger that way, but that’s also what she’d said about Ron initially. Granger’s a standard sort of pretty. Nice bum. At the moment she smells like nervous sweat and a girl’s unwashed hair.

“My attempt at infidelity,” Granger responds evenly, wiping her mouth with her balled-up jumper sleeve. “First and last attempt, I should say.”

Pansy snorts. Life is all sorts of fucked up. “Listen, if I’d been ready, you’d’ve wanted to do it again.”

Granger rolls her eyes, but a faint blush colors her cheeks. “I don’t doubt that, given your history with Ronald.” Her eyes flicker to the door, and she grabs a box of tissues from Potter’s nightstand, hugging it to her chest. “You can leave now, if you’re finished.”

Pansy’s feet hit the floor and she slips her wand into the garter under her skirt. “I’ll put in the request today,” she repeats, then peers over her shoulder. “See you never, I guess, Granger.”

Granger nods but doesn’t meet Pansy’s eyes, turning her wand over and over in her hands. She's left to think, on her way out the door, what her last words had been to Ron. She'd never committed them to memory.


	17. Chapter 17

Harry’s determination to tell Malfoy the truth had lasted quite a while, in his opinion. He’s always been perseverant, just out of nature, and daunting as it seems to potentially destroy the fledgling flame between him and Malfoy and alienate him from both Harry and one of his closest friends by revealing his knowledge of his turbulent past, Zabini had infuriated Harry enough to blind him to nearly every consequence.

But now it’s waning. Not because Harry’s suddenly grown fearful, but because he can’t bloody get in touch with Malfoy. The last he’d seen of him, Harry had been sleep-bleary and Malfoy had been dressed in his clothes and it’d been almost funny, because Narcissa had been there, too, and the mother-and-son-duo had left him in his bedroom with Hermione and Pansy, of all people. But that had been three days ago, and Harry’s been everywhere.

While Malfoy’s room at Grimmauld Place remains intact, his house-elves are nowhere to be found, and much to Harry’s dismay (discovered by trial and error), he hasn’t quite the status in Iggy and Tilly’s eyes to just presumptuously clap in an echoing room of his home and have them Apparate faithfully to his side. He’d been to the Ministry — no sign of Malfoy, but Susan had been there. Harry had accosted her for returning to work so soon after Timothy’s birth, but she’d rolled her eyes and smiled at him, told him how much she’d missed cleaning up Harry’s messes but also how much she’d been needing to get out of the house. He’d run smack into Michael Corner’s chest in the hallway in his scramble to leave before it became reality that Susan was back, and back for good. Corner had righted him by the shoulders, ignored Harry’s frenzied apologies, and relayed the news that Narcissa Malfoy had just pled guilty to aiding and abetting in Lucius’ fugitive escape from Azkaban. No, Malfoy hadn’t been there, Corner told him before he’d even asked, and though Harry had frowned at first, he’d just bristled thereafter, because _he_ should have been there, should have been there in Malfoy’s place at the very least. The arraignment had been quick and intimate, Corner had said, and Narcissa would remain in holding until her sentencing. Once the information had had time to register in Harry’s brain, he’d started off on a near-sprint down to the Atrium. Corner had called after him, congratulated him on _the switch, mate_ , which Harry didn’t have to pretend to not know about. It went over his head in his harried state. He fidgeted in the elevator and shouldered past strangers and ignored the _“Hello, Harry Potter!”_ s he was usually so good about responding to with utmost respect. His attempts to Floo to Malfoy Manor had been futile — he’d tossed the powder down thrice and remained in the very same spot, looking foolish and frustrated, even more so when an elderly witch had toddled up to him and said, _“You might want to try someplace else, sweetheart.”_ “I knew that,” he’d muttered, mostly to try and piece together his fragile mojo, because even if he’d lived with Malfoy for two consecutive months, he didn’t really know him as well as he’d hoped. With Grimmauld Place, the Ministry, the Manor — where he could very well be, but just out of Harry’s grasp — Harry had virtually exhausted the list of places where he could’ve expected to find Malfoy. Then, with a stifled groan, he’d sighed out, “Pansy Parkinson’s flat.”

That’s how Harry finds himself tracking soot onto a near-clinically white laminate floor. He vaguely recalls paying Pansy a brief visit at her last birthday bash, but devoid of loud, colorful, drunken people, her flat is an entirely different world.

He simply stands there a moment, gazing at the rather dramatic, overbearing art piece on the wall opposite him, above a white, leather sofa — it’s a plain canvas, nearly blending in with the white wall behind it, but, just as with the wall surrounding it, it’s been smattered in black and red paint, creating a three-dimensional effect as it protrudes from the equally angsty mess around it. His eyes narrow, though he’s not sure why, because it’s not out of the question to be imagining Pansy hanging up a plain canvas only to barbarically splatter paint everywhere.

“Potter?”

Harry’s eyes snap away from the painting to the source of the voice. It’s Creasey, stark naked, and by stark, Harry means _stark_ , clutching a steaming cup of tea and grinning in the doorway. Harry chokes on something — air, his tonsils, the back of his tongue — as Creasey strides toward him, claps him on the back with a dull _thump_ rather heavily for someone with such skinny arms. Harry blinks owlishly at his face, the bony jut of his collarbones. A rapid escape is not unwarranted, he decides.

“Wassup, my man?” Creasey presses, fingers clutching Harry’s shoulder. “S’been a while since we’ve had some one-on-one, hasn’t it? With you being all busy with blondie, and the applications for the next round of trainees… It’s funny, now that you mention it, the fact that you’ve been busy, so ‘cos we’re partners and all, I haven’t done shit for three whole fucking weeks. The second you’re off the radar for fieldwork, it’s like they forget I’m even there — I’ve just been getting paid to come to work and eat in the Canteen! I’ve tried all the frothshake flavors, _finally_ — even the one that comes with the sprinkled doughnut ‘round the straw.”

Harry doesn’t get a chance to voice his overwhelming opinion of _I don’t fucking care_ because there’s movement at the doorway and Pansy appears. If it wasn’t for the dressing gown she’s clad in, she’d be in a similar state of undress as Clem. She’s without makeup, Harry thinks, for the first time he’s seen her since early Hogwarts days, and her cheeks and drooping eyes are an angry red, like they’ve been rubbed at with steel wool. Pansy rolls those eyes, and Harry sees veins.

“Circe’s tits, Potter. Can’t you give it a rest?” she mutters, rubbing a tiny hand down her face.

Harry tries to go for cool — as cool as one can be when one has just been flashed in every way by Clem Creasey. “I don’t know what you’re talk —“

“Draco’s. Not. Here,” Pansy snaps, and her hands go to her hips as her eyes rove from Harry to Creasey. Harry frowns, feeling transparent. “When did you have time to make tea? And why the fuck didn’t you make me any?”

Creasey coughs mid-slurp and drips hot tea down his chin and to his naked chest. “I did make tea for you. I… just happen to be drinking it.” He stares down into his cup regretfully, then offers it meekly to Pansy.

“He closed the Manor’s Floo,” Harry butts in.

“Fuck’s sake, you two — take a bloody hint! Potter, he doesn’t want to talk to you. Clem, _god_ , I don’t want your leftovers.” Pansy takes a few steps, sags onto the stiff, white couch.

Of course that thought had occurred to Harry, the fact that Malfoy may want to be alone. The guilt gnaws on his insides more with every passing second, though, and it churns Harry’s stomach that this guilt might be out of self-interest. And… maybe it is. But he maintains that he wouldn’t feel so sick if it wasn’t Malfoy he’d wronged.

Creasey brushes past Harry with his brown curls hanging in front of his eyes like a kicked puppy, presumably on his way to fix Pansy a cuppa. Harry’s fists clench at his sides. He knows he should take Draco’s hint as Pansy’s, too, because Hermione had run her plan by him (even if it had been only to tell Harry that she’d heed none of his advice) so Pansy might as well be wearing a giant, neon sign that read _Fuck off if you have anything to do with Ron Weasley_. The longer he thinks about it, Harry is grateful that a fraction of his life will be returning to normal — he’ll get his best mate and Hermione back on their feet and Creasey out of his life with just one stone.

Harry inches toward Pansy. “Hey, you alright?” It’s a deliberately stupid question.

Her hands cover her face, elbows against her knees, and almost as if she’d expected Harry to have disappeared into thin air in the past silent minute, she flinches out of her stillness and glares at him murderously with her red eyes. “No, I’m not fucking alright,” she hisses, her bottom row of tiny, pearlescent teeth jutted forward just so that she resembled a pint-sized but vicious bulldog. As if debating whether or not Harry is worth ranting to, she assesses him coldly, and he can’t help but feel the need to suppress a faint smile when she erupts the very moment he takes a seat beside her. “I hate Weasleys, Potter. You’re practically an adoptive Weasley! How do you live with yourself? I just had — the _worst_ sex of my life with the bloke I’m going to be partnered with for Merlin knows how many long and painful years, pretending as if the past several had never happened —“

Harry hoots a bit, because hot, _hot_ , there’s something burning and spreading across his lap, and he looks up frantically to find Creasey standing before both of them, empty teacup dangling from one long finger. Harry points a cooling charm at his own crotch, which he’s had to do much too often as of late.

“What did you just say?” Creasey implores from above. Pansy Vanishes the puddle of tea on the white floor between Harry’s feet, then sighs.

“The sex was bad, Clem. I shouldn’t be surprised you didn’t notice, not when you came thrice and I didn’t even once —“

“No,” Creasey interrupts, strangely out of character, and Harry then makes a face, because Creasey’s suddenly squeezing onto the sofa on Harry’s other side, gluing their thighs together and sandwiching Harry between him and Pansy. “Not that. I meant — you said partners. Us. I already have a partner.”

Harry’s face contorts into a smug smile helplessly, because Creasey doesn’t know yet, and though Harry’s meant to be coaxing information about Draco out of Pansy, it feels too good to resist when Creasey’s puzzled eyes move from Pansy to him and he’s given the chance to frown and shrug theatrically. Pansy’s nails sharpen into phoenix-like claws and she digs them into Harry’s lower back where Creasey can’t see.

“I’m being reassigned,” Pansy states, repressed anger in her tone. “Sorry, Clem. I know you and Potter were _just_ like two peas in a bleeding pod, and if I was a vegetable, I’d be more of an aubergine than a pea, so it’s less than ideal. But it’s happening. The Head Auror signed off on it this morning before you came.”

Creasey’s jaw is slack. Pansy’s claws retract. Harry fails to conceal his sheepish smile.

“Oh, fuck,” whispers Creasey. Harry’s instincts tell him to _stand, stand quickly, get the fuck out, mate,_ because Creasey’s eyes brim with tears, but Pansy and Creasey’s thighs on both sides slow his escape enough that he’s unable to break free before he’s locked up in Creasey’s arms with the guy half in his lap, palms thumping so hard on his back that it sounds like a bass drum. “Fuck, dude! Potter, I’m gonna miss you, man,” Creasey sniffles into Harry’s shoulder, and, Merlin, his shirt is getting wet. “We’ve had some good times, man, and a damn good track record — remember that time in Bath when you threw me outta the way of that potions addict’s AK? You saved my life. I’ll never fucking forget you.” Harry only realizes his whole body is stiff when it’s physically difficult to turn his head to look at Pansy, on whom a ghost of a smile peeks through all the misery and cynicism hardening her dark features.

“You pretty much asked for it,” Pansy whispers as she tweaks Harry’s cheek. She takes the teacup still dangling from Clem’s fingers and disappears from the living room with it, leaving Creasey’s tears to stick Harry’s shirt to his skin.

*** 

Harry tugs absentmindedly at the collar of his shirt. It’s the evening, but the fabric is still slightly damp to the touch.

He’s in his kitchen, elbows against the table, ankle against his knee, watching as Ron, across from him, scoffs down a semi-burnt meal Kreacher has thrown together of pan-fried sausages and eggs as if he’s not eaten in days. If observational evidence is required to prove that Obliviation makes a man hungry, this must be it.

Harry clears his throat, rubs at his jaw. “So, er. How do you feel?”

Wasps on Cannons blares fuzzily on the radio by Ron’s elbow. With Ron in tow just a half hour ago, Hermione had stepped into Harry’s living room. He’d been there, in his living room, definitely not meditatively staring out his window at the empty street and thinking about Malfoy, and Hermione had shoved Ron forward and said, “Ronald would like to listen to the game with you.”

Ron had blinked, like he’d just woken from a very satisfying but rudely interrupted nap. “I would?” He’d thought — or seemed to be thinking — and then confirmed, “I would.”

Hermione’s eyes bored insistently into Harry. “You can — you may imbibe, if you must. If it keeps you entertained. I need — I’ll be back later.” And then she’d disappeared.

Ron sets down his fork with a clatter of ornate House of Black silverware against IKEA ceramic. A scraggly piece of egg falls from the corner of his mouth to his lap, or to Harry’s floor, where it will likely stay until Kreacher feels the need to clean the floor, the mouse living under the china cabinet gets hungry, Harry finds himself losing a shoe on a particularly sticky patch of the floor and decides it is indeed time to clean that floor, or Malfoy takes one critical look at it and demands that Harry charm it clean wandlessly before he sets foot inside. Ron reaches for his beer bottle, belches before it even gets to his mouth, then takes a gulp. He wipes his mouth with the back of his henley sleeve. “Shittier by the minute, mate, if Horton keeps letting the quaffle through,” he mutters, shaking his head and eyeing the radio. Then his eyes fixate on Harry. “Why d’you ask? You’re looking pale, Harry. Peaky. How do _you_ feel?”

Harry coughs and shakes his head. He drops his worrying palm from his scratchy jaw to the kitchen table with a thump that’s too loud to be casual, but Ron doesn’t notice. He thinks this is the strangest, most sickening sort of guilt he’s ever felt — knowing _stuff_ he really oughtn’t that the subject of said _stuff_ has no idea he knows. The guilt is oddly specific, too, and his Boy Who Nearly Died So Many Goddamn Times luck must not be turning if he’s felt the twist of such a secret’s knife twice in a matter of weeks.

Harry starts, “I’m,“ and there’s a thump from upstairs. His eyes fly to Kreacher by the sink, who’s been keeping busy charming a toothbrush Harry vaguely believes to be his own to wash out his eggs-and-sausage pan for the past ten minutes. Kreacher doesn’t bat an eye.

“Is Buckbeak back?” Ron chuckles, though he seems to instantly regret it when Harry whips out his wand and gets to his feet. “Whoa, mate.” The two teams’ seekers are on the Snitch’s tail, reports the announcer, so Ron’s, “Be careful,” sounds distracted as he turns the volume dial on the radio and leans eagerly toward it, because no matter who catches it, Chudley loses. There’s a second thump, and Harry stares at his best friend, more pissed off than fond but marginally fond all the same, turning his wand over in his hand before he’s striding out of the kitchen and to the stairs. He takes them a stealthy two at a time, and by the time he reaches the landing — empty, at first glance — he’s still plowing forward with the momentum from his last leap, and he stumbles right into someone — _Malfoy_ — emerging from the spare room — _Malfoy’s_ room — with a box in his arms that falls to the floor between them with a third, echoing thump.

“You know, Potter, I’ve thought many a time that the higher powers made a mistake when they put you on this Earth, but evidently they did it with purpose, because giving you the very thickest skull known to Wizarding kind must have been their attempt to protect you from your indisputable clumsiness,” Malfoy grumbles, then drops to a squat to toss a silken scarf that had fluttered to the floor in the midst of their collision back into the box.

Harry’s wand arm drops to his side. Okay, perhaps he’s in a bit of shock. “Malfoy, what are you doing here?” he breathes.

Malfoy snorts, picking up the box and straightening to full height again. Harry gets a good look at him this time. His platinum hair is styled, not a single strand out of place, but his eyes are ringed with violet, cheeks sallow, and despite the dignity of his smart dress, his mauve jumper droops around his tummy, as if he’s been tugging at it. “What does it look like, Potter? I’m clearly stealing _your_ collection of silk cravats that you’ve amassed over your many years as a well-dressed member of society to take to the Manor with me so I can hand-stitch them into a Harry Potter voodoo doll.”

Harry can’t help it when he smiles faintly. His eyes rake over Malfoy’s face, the teasing glint in his gray eyes, and he needs to catch him by the arm, beg him to stay and talk. _Really_ talk. He doesn’t. “But if you leave with my ascots, I’ll have nothing left to wear.”

“Cravats. Not all cravats are ascots, Potter.” Malfoy shifts the box so he’s holding it against his hip with one arm. “It’s like rectangles and squares, birds and Augureys. Obviously.”

Harry shakes his head almost imperceptibly, a pleasant yet unsettling heat prickling at the back of his neck and all the way down his spine when Malfoy meets his eyes. “So… The Manor. That’s where you’ve been since…”

“Since I flew the coop, yes. At the time, I honestly thought I’d hallucinated those past twenty four hours.” His gaze is meaningful, or perhaps it’s Harry that’s hallucinating. “Anyway, I did notify the authorities of where I’d be.” Malfoy’s left pale eyebrow rises.

Harry snorts. “All the authorities but me?”

“All the authorities but you.”

Harry’s teeth dig into his lower lip, and the quirk of his mouth fades the longer that, surprisingly, Malfoy holds his gaze. It’s possible he’s too tired not to. When Harry finally exhales out his nose, it feels like his head and chest are twenty pounds lighter.

“Malfoy,” Harry says slowly, lowly, and he feels closer to Malfoy though he hasn’t stepped any. “You said something… What you’d said that night — about staying.”

Malfoy’s eyes roll away to stare at the door to Harry’s bedroom and he adjusts his grip on the cardboard box. “Potter, please don’t. In hindsight, that was all rather histrionic and embarrassing, and I have no excuses for that episode of mine, so I apologize —“

Harry scoffs, and this time he does step closer. “Oh, come on. You meant it,” he mutters, tone firm.

Malfoy’s upper lip twitches, as if he’s dying to sneer, tell Harry off that he’s been reading the signals all wrong, as if one could misread Malfoy’s tongue down his throat and arms around his neck. Harry bristles, prepared to defend his honor, or his feelings, or _something_ , but instead Malfoy huffs, “So what if I did? I’m — I’m returning to the Manor. It’s where I should be right now. It’s where I should’ve always been, had extraordinary circumstances not had a say.”

Harry doesn’t even know what he’s arguing for, what his goal is. “ _Why?_ You’re alone there anyway. Lucius isn’t coming back, and for all you know, your mother isn’t either,” he barks, then freezes, an expressive hand caught in mid-air as he gauges Malfoy to see if he’s struck a nerve.

Malfoy is full of surprises, because at that, his lips curl into something not entirely displeased. “I should’ve known you wouldn’t sugarcoat it, Potter.”

Harry sighs, mostly out of relief, but despite Malfoy’s reaction, all he can see is his wan complexion, the front he’s put up, his rumpled state. “Are you okay?”

Apparently that’s what strikes the nerve, because Malfoy’s jaw tightens as he gathers himself and tries to shove past Harry, but the corners of that cardboard box of Malfoy’s cravats stabs them both in the stomachs when they collide, so Malfoy petulantly lets go of it a fourth time.

“This is why I wanted to slip in, pick up my shit, and slip out, all unnoticed. I just knew you were going to be an absolute prat about this. Of course I’m not okay, but that doesn’t mean that because we’ve slept together on numerous occasions, you’re in any way entitled to talk to me about _my_ emotions,” Malfoy says, avoiding Harry’s eyes. It’s a wonder Harry even registers any of Malfoy’s words — it’s all the same nonsensical, evasive bullshit he’s always prattling off, and the mere fact that Malfoy is there, alive but grieving, is already throwing Harry off after days of not knowing where he’s been or seeing him.

“I wasn’t offering to give you a therapy session,” Harry grumbles. Malfoy frowns briefly, and then Harry finally catches his eyes, holding his gaze. Malfoy’s eyes narrow and he props his hands on his hips.

“Of course not. A therapy session with Harry Potter would be fucking useless. When one complains about one’s life, one wants to feel worse off enough to be deserving of consolation and sympathy. You can’t get that from someone who’s died _and_ seen everyone die.”

Harry gazes blankly at him. “There’s not much I can do about that, is there?” he asks dryly. “But I’m not incapable of sympathy.” He waits a beat, and then a little, stupid part of his brain tells him to try to reach for Malfoy’s hand. He makes it about three quarters of the way before Malfoy realizes and smacks him on the back of the hand.

“Don’t do that,” Malfoy quips, but his eyes are less severe. “I don’t need your sympathy.” Harry’s body knows what’s coming next before his brain does, because Malfoy deflates slightly before him and leans over to kiss him, and by the time he does, Harry’s lips are parted and his eyes are closed. The point of Malfoy’s nose digs into his cheek, and he doesn’t retract when Harry goes blindly for his hand again, and they hold one another’s wrists in the space between. It’s dry and warm and Malfoy’s fingers tense and prod into his skin as if he doesn’t want to let go. And he might not have, he might not have at all, had Ron not roared a furious, echoing, profound _“BLOODY HELL!”_ from the floor below. Malfoy’s hand goes limp against his wrist and he draws his head back, still close enough that all Harry sees of him are gunmetal eyes and crinkled brows and the swoop of his white hair against his forehead. “I didn’t realize you had guests,” he whispers. “Or, more precisely, a rodent infestation.”

It’s not funny. “Very funny,” Harry deadpans. He still smirks warily, releases Malfoy’s wrist. “It’s just post-Obliviation Ron.” He bites the inside of his lip, eyes flickering down to the box of cravats he’s terribly glad he didn’t step into in the haze of their brief kiss. “Were you leaving?”

Malfoy licks his lips. “No. I was — Actually, I was on my way to your sty to check if I’d left anything. But then I’ll be on my way.”

“Right. Alright. Back to the Manor.” _Tell him, tell him, tell him._ “Er, Malfoy?”

Malfoy bends over to pick up his box. He’s eye-level with Harry’s crotch for a couple of seconds, and Harry thinks perhaps that’s why he appears so complacent when he straightens up. “Yes, Potter?”

Harry swallows hard. “Just. Good luck. For your mum.” The fingers still around his wand clench up.

Malfoy rolls his eyes, traipses toward Harry’s bedroom with the box hugged to his chest. “Thank Merlin you’re around, Potter. If magic won’t help at this point, _surely_ luck will!” he calls with false, animated cheer.

That’s where their conversation ends, Harry thinks. And he’s frustrated, unsatisfied, because it shouldn’t, he shouldn’t have let it, he should’ve cuffed Malfoy to a chair, or to himself, even, anything to get himself to confess what he knows he must. But Harry’s feet carry him downstairs to the tune of Malfoy’s absentminded whistling in his bedroom. And even if the last thing he wants to do is to seem like he’s caved under the pressure of Blaise Zabini’s urging him to remain silent, he can’t help but feel some semblance of relief.

*** 

“What was it?”

“What was what?”

“That noise upstairs.”

“Oh, er — I left a window open. The wind knocked something over.” Harry cringes openly at his own lie and eases down onto the bench across from Ron, whose plate is full once again. Kreacher is smarter than Harry sometimes thinks him to be — he must know that it takes minimal effort to please Ron, and that salty but otherwise unseasoned eggs and blackened sausages on the verge of expiration will bring him unequaled joy. But to someone with standards, like Hermione, whom Kreacher both respects and fears, he’d never serve such garbage.

“Nice. Okay. The Snitch hasn’t been caught, but we’re still down by two hundred. And that aggressive, half-Russian ogre of a bloke the Wasps drafted last year knocked Gorgovitch off his bloody broom!” Ron spews no egg that time, just enthusiastic spittle.

Harry chuckles halfheartedly and shakes his head. Is he really to be blamed if he’s distracted? His eyes dart to the ceiling, as if he could, through the ceiling, see Malfoy pacing above him. That’s something he’s yet to figure out how to do — x-ray vision — but he’s positive it’s possible. “I think this game’s a lost cause, mate.”

“They’ve come back from worse,” Ron protests in a defensive mumble through a full mouth.

“I… don’t think that’s true.”

The door to the kitchen creaks open behind Ron. Only Harry notices. Ron also doesn’t notice the furrow in Harry’s brow as the door closes again. He spares a glance at the kitchen windows; they’re all sealed shut, so the excuse of a draft would be misplaced. Harry hasn’t let go of his wand once since he’d initially jumped at checking the upstairs, and he’s suddenly very aware of its presence in his palm, because something tingles under his skin as if alerting him of a presence. He shifts uneasily as his eyes flicker over the space behind Ron. He’s on the verge of muttering an anxious _Homenum Revelio_ when Malfoy’s head appears floating in mid-air, yes, just his head, and a sneaky smirk that Harry realizes he’s actually, genuinely _missed_ — what the fuck? — comes to his lips where he presses his finger against them in a silent _shh_. Malfoy must have really rooted around in Harry’s wardrobe, then, if he’d unearthed the cloak from that chaotic mess. Harry fights a smile, shakes his head subtly, but he does lay his wand on the bench beside himself and fold his arms more comfortably over the table. His fingers lace together, his eyebrow cocks almost challengingly. Malfoy takes this as an invitation, it seems, because in another breath he’s gone. Ron’s glazed-over eyes haven’t twitched in the last three minutes, and really, Harry doesn’t very much understand the practice of staring at the radio, because there are no lips there to read nor action to observe, but that’s exactly what he’s been doing. Ron’s hair parts like the Ginger Sea against unseeable fingers that scrape across his scalp, and Harry rests his face against his hand such that it conveniently covers his mouth. He tries not to snort.

“Feels good, mate. Like, not in a gay way,” Ron practically purrs, eyes closing, before they pop open to stare at Harry across the table. All rather belatedly, he startles and shudders in the same movement and then whips around to look at a whole lot of nothing behind him, and then at Harry again. “What the hell was that?” he whispers, alarmed. Harry hears Kreacher tut from the sink.

“What was what?” Harry smiles behind his palm and rubs at the corners of his mouth.

“I just —“ But his words cut short like an off switch because the commentator is shouting on the radio, Cockney words stringing together incoherently, but Ron seems to hold onto every one.

Harry feels the air beside him move and he deliberately does not flinch, nor does he do anything but keep his eyes trained on the wood grain of the table when Malfoy occupies the space beside him, their hips touching. Harry suspects he’s seated backwards on the bench, because otherwise he’d feel the press of his leg all up and down his own. Harry’s attention is attracted to his lap when a long, visible hand pokes out from between the folds of the cloak and settles on Harry’s thigh, just a light touch, and he stares down at it, quadricep tensing, until he impulsively drops a hand to curl around Malfoy’s fingers and just squeeze, squeeze until he knows the bones of Malfoy’s knuckles are uncomfortably compressed, but not enough to hurt. Malfoy squeezes back. Harry thinks it’s uncharted territory, that kind of contact, and perhaps Malfoy feels the same, because his fingers loosen in Harry’s and he feels the brush of the cloak’s cloth against his ear. Malfoy’s leaning in, whispering to him, “What if I told you I was naked under here?”

Harry chokes on air, but the whole exchange is veiled by the static and obnoxious commentary from the radio, so Ron notices nothing. Malfoy pries his hand from Harry’s and lets his fingertips rest against the inseam of Harry’s jeans instead, drumming an indistinct pattern as the heel of his hand digs into his thigh. It’s a bizarre sensation, being able to feel the shape of Malfoy’s nose against his ear, against the hair behind his ear, but seeing nothing but that disembodied hand on his leg. He sucks in a deep breath, closes his eyes, pretends the bottom half of his body doesn’t belong to him, that he can’t feel the blood desperately rushing south. But then he smiles to himself, turns his head in the vague direction of Malfoy beside him, feels his own nose collide with something soft, perhaps the plane of his cheek.

“Malfoy, if you — if you were naked, then you’d be barefoot, and I know for a fact you’d never set foot in my kitchen barefoot. And I know you take your shoes off before your trousers when you strip, like all sensible wizards do, so unless you put them back on after, which, I’ll admit, is a charming and frankly hilarious image, I refuse to believe you’re naked,” Harry mumbles and bites his lower lip.

There’s no response for a while. Then, “Damn you, Potter. For an idiot, you can be awfully non-idiotic at the worst of times.” Malfoy’s hand disappears and there’s a whoosh of air that blows a lock of Harry’s air to brush against his forehead ephemerally, and Harry can sense that Malfoy’s warmth is gone as well as his magic. He continues to smile in amusement at the thin air beside him, and even wider when the kitchen door opens and shuts, and only then does he notice that no longer is his radio hollering. Instead, Ron is staring at him, mystified, to the background soundtrack of a belting Celestina Warbeck.

“Was there a ghost in here?” he asks breathlessly, conspiratorially. “I didn’t even — I didn’t even see anything. Was it something only you can see? Was there a — holy shit, was it the ghost of a snake?” Ron’s eyes, blue, wide saucers, blink at him, then narrow as he squints, twirling his fork between his fingers. “Can snakes even become ghosts? Or — or were you hearing voices again, Harry? Bloody hell, mate! You’re supposed to tell me when this shit happens, before it escalates too fast and someone’s cat is petrified!”

Harry rubs at his jaw guiltily, still trying to shake the self-indulgent smile from his face. “Who won?”

Ron is thrown for all of a second. Then he grins. “Wasps. But we only lost by one-thirty.”

*** 

Harry Apparates to the Ministry without Malfoy for the first time in weeks that Monday. He’s making his way through the Atrium when a fireplace at his right blazes green and Ron steps out, closely followed by Hermione. When Ron gives Harry a good-natured slap on the shoulder, Harry tries for a smile, but his eyes flit to Hermione. ‘You okay?’ he mouthes, and she smiles in the same, tight way as him and curls her fingers around Ron’s elbow.

“It’s a day of firsts, my good friend,” Ron is saying as they move through the crowd together. Making one’s way through the crowded Atrium at nine on a Monday might have been more difficult did the majority of passersby not naturally part to make way for the three of them all in a line. “First day on the job as partners — _hell_ yeah!”

“Technically _second_ first day as partners,” Harry murmurs, flashing smiles at a few familiar but unnamed faces in the lift they all squeeze their way into.

“C’mon, Harry. If we cross that one off, I only have two other firsts, and that’s lame, and then I can’t call this a day of firsts.”

Harry rolls his eyes. Hermione smiles, and it’s a welcome sight.

_“Level seven, Department of Magical Games and Sports, incorporating the British and Irish Quidditch League Headquarters, Official Gobstones Club, and Ludicrous Patents Office.”_

“As I was saying — first day on the job as partners again. _Hell_ yeah.” Ron pumps his fist carefully as not to jostle the moustached man behind him, whose long, black coat and imperious gaze make him an imposing figure. Ron is oblivious to his distasteful energy. Harry smiles at the man apologetically. “Also, first day back without your ball and chain, Harry, and man, if that isn’t a weight off my shoulders. Yours, too, I mean. I’ll get through the whole day without having to hear him yak on about how my pores are _eructing_ the — the fucking smell of canned beef or somethin’ or other, when all I want is a goddamn copy of a misplaced case file.”

Hermione’s brows draw together. “Draco said that about you?”

“Not _about_ me. _To_ my face.”

_“Level five, Department of International Magical Cooperation, incorporating the International Magical Trading Standards Body, the International Magical Office of Law, and the International Confederation of Wizards, British Seats.”_

Hermione covers up her laugh as a cough, and if Harry hides a smile as he turns to let a witch shoulder past him on her way out of the lift, Ron doesn’t need to know. Hermione catches his gaze, though. The depths of her eyes beg for answers, and he supposes that’s a conversation with her that he’ll need to have. He thinks she’s put Ron and Pansy to rest, laid them in their grave and packed the dirt in, unwilling to dig it up for even a rehashing of how she feels, and… Harry doesn’t know that that’s so fine. But Ron’s memory has been erased and their Auror partnerships have been sorted out, so she’s got less loose ends than Harry does concerning Malfoy — which, he realizes, Hermione’s only just found out about. Had she not been distracted in the meanwhile, it would have taken all of her patience and more to not prod Harry about it. She’s tied her ends, though, and perhaps it isn’t the worst thing that Hermione could bring it up, undoubtedly question the nature of their relationship, if one could call it that. Only Blaise and Paloma know about the memories, and Harry’s not sure he views either of them as his allies. Sharing with the person Harry trusts most with all decisions involving rationality his predicament might actually be the smartest thing he could do. Which is why, of course, he hasn’t done so yet.

“And speak of the devil! Third, and arguably most importantly, today is our first — and only — Interdepartmental Quidditch match of the month, against none other than the _losers_ from IMC,” Ron states, and before the lift can shoot backwards and into the void, there’s a shout of, _“You’re goin’ down, Weasley!”_ from somewhere on the fifth level.

Ron’s smile falters momentarily, but then he puffs up his chest with pride. “It’s good to know the competition feels threatened.”

_“Level two, Department of Magical Law Enforcement, including the Improper Use of Magic Office, Auror Headquarters, and Wizengamot Administration Services.”_

They step out and Harry slides his hands into the pockets of his jacket, pokes a finger through the hole in the right one. “Did you come to see the match, Hermione?”

Hermione walks a step ahead of Ron. “What? Oh, er. Yes. That’s why I’m here.” Her pace quickens, and then Harry understands.

Pansy emerges from her cubicle, dangling an empty mug from a black-painted finger. She appears unperturbed by the changing tides of the past week, contrary to how Harry had found her over the weekend — high-heeled Mary Janes, short skirt, sleek, ebony hair, makeup unsmudged. Harry nearly blurts out a _Have you seen Malfoy?_ but Hermione gets there first.

“Hello, Pandora,” she says coolly.

Pansy hardly reacts. She raises an eyebrow at Hermione in passing, and out of left field, pinches Harry’s side. Then she’s off toward the Canteen. Harry frowns, rubbing himself protectively.

“Damn. Rude much? Is she new?” Ron whispers.

“I don’t think so,” says Hermione, then steers Ron in the direction of his cubicle.

Susan is at her desk. Before he can open his mouth, she holds up a finger. “Don’t give me that look, Harry. I gave birth, I recovered, and then I got bored sitting around my flat. My boyfriend makes a much better housewife than I do. As long as I pump every few hours, I’m just hunky-dory, so please don’t add me to your mental list of victims. You needn’t save me from lactation.”

Harry smiles. “We’re all happy you’re back, Suze.” And he is. He’s just not as glad that Malfoy is gone.

Striding toward his cubicle, Harry hopes rise far too high when there’s a skinny, trouser-clad leg poking out from beyond its walls, a dragon leather shoe tapping against the floor. Way, _way_ too high, as in it’s not Malfoy’s skinny leg, nor is it Malfoy sitting in his chair and waiting for Harry to arrive that morning. It’s Creasey, who springs onto his feet at the first sight of Harry.

“Potter, brother! I’ve been sitting here for so long — ‘cos, like, you know, I haven’t been doin’ much work lately, so I forgot what time you came into the office in the mornings, and Weasley told me it was usually closer to ten, and then Pansy told me five-fifteen ‘cos you like to watch the sunrise, so, like, better safe than sorry, right?” He smiles genially. Good god. “By the way, how d’you watch the sun rise if we’re underground? Think I realized that around six, and I’ve been tryin’ to figure it out since.”

Harry smiles with a great deal of effort and nods. He figures he can be polite, at the very least, given he won’t have to deal with Creasey on a daily basis now. He steps past Clem and into his cubicle, expecting the gesture will compel him to step out, give Harry his personal space. He doesn’t, and these cubicles were not made for two. “Morning, Clem. Was there, er, something I could do for you?” He shuffles a few envelopes around on his desk, but he must not look very busy, because Creasey plows on with full force. Or then he does, and Creasey is blind to social cues, which is more likely.

“Yeah, man. I just — We were partners for a while, y’know? Even if it kind of sucked for you at first, getting me as a replacement to your best buddy. But it’s awesome, right, that you get to be his partner again? And Pansy’s hot and everything, so I guess that’s cool for me.” Creasey rubs his palms together absently.

Harry sits on the edge of his desk and watches him, waits.

“So, yeah, it was awesome to be partners with the very best. Who gets to say they were Auror partners with Harry Potter? Like…” Creasey raises a fisted hand, lifts up his forefinger, then his middle finger, mouth moving without sound as he, what, _counts to himself?_ “Yeah. Two. Two people can say that. And that’s including _me_ , so it’s not a lot. So, anyway, I got you something, got us both something, ‘cos I appreciate you, man, and I want you to know that.” He reaches into the pocket of his pants and produces two wrist sweatbands, or so they appear to be. One of them is striped with Gryffindor colors, the other with alternating blue and maroon. Harry arches an eyebrow.

“This one’s for you.” Creasey hands the Gryffindor-striped one to him. “It’s supposed to be your house colors. Pukwudgie doesn’t really have colors, so I just made mine like the Ilvermorny robes.” His mouth twitches into a triumphant smile as he holds his own sweatband up for Harry to see. “So, like, my little sister’s got this necklace that only her and her best bud have, these two halves of a heart that make the whole when you hold ‘em together. So, feelin’ inspired, I kind of nicked that idea, and look!” He points to a little golden hoop on his sweatband, from which hangs a half of a matching, golden broken heart. He lines it up with the one on Harry’s, because, _oh_ , his has one, too, and sure enough, the heart is whole. Harry’s smile is tense, but Creasey’s genuine excitement is too palpable for him to even consider dropping his charade at this point. “Just — yeah. Something for you to remember me by, partner.” Creasey slips his sweatband on. “Fits like a glove. Figured you wouldn’t, like, wear a necklace, so I was just like, what would a real bro like Potter wear? It’s a _bro_ celet! Get it?” He grins crookedly and proffers his fist for a fist bump, and Harry obliges silently. “Anyway, all sap aside, I’m just seven cubicles away. This isn’t the end. And we’ve got a game today!” Harry receives a smack to his shoulder, shocked by the force behind it, because Creasey’s got the kind of elbows that protrude prominently because his upper arms are smaller than his medial epicondyles.

“Hey, thanks, mate,” Harry murmurs, blinking slowly. He’s still got the sweatband held between two fingers when Creasey saunters off, and he rolls his eyes, sagging into his chair. It’s too much.

“If you’d like, babe, I’ll pretend I didn’t see any of that and swear to never tell a soul.”

Harry swivels in his chair to find a demurely-smirking Danica Dawlish standing in the opening to his cubicle and, Merlin, when was the last time he’d called her?

“Dan,” he gasps out, and then he’s on his feet, going in for a hug or maybe a kiss — however fate would interpret his leaning into her. Danica’s fingertips against his chest stop him, and he stares directly into her eyes, breathes in her flowery perfume.

“Whoa, whoa. Sit down, mister.” She smiles with magenta lips and nudges Harry backward, and _shit_ , she knows. She knows about him and Malfoy. They were in an open relationship, him and Danica, but his affair with Malfoy is suddenly a crisis, and he lowers himself to his chair as Danica shifts some envelopes aside and sits on his desk. Her sky-blue robes just reach her knees, and she swings her bronze legs capped with matching blue pumps as she leans toward him. “I just wanted to talk to you, if that’s alright.”

Harry can’t deal with all the secrets. He’s got too many. He has so many secrets that he’d bloody _forgotten_ about _this_ secret, this particular one he’s yet to divulge to his on-and-off partner, so he goes ahead and blurts, “I’ve been sleeping with Draco Malfoy,” and in his mind it plays out like a scene in a movie where a gunshot is heard in the pure silence and the birds on the nearby tree crow and caw and fly off into the sky in a dark flock. His confession is the gunshot, of course.

Danica tilts her head to the side. Then, she smiles. “No shit?” she murmurs, then hooks her fingers over the edge of the desk. “I mean, I’d kind of wondered why you hadn’t been calling me.” Her dark brows lift and she frowns thoughtfully as she brushes dark curls over her shoulder. “Good for you, though, Harry. Draco is cute. I suppose — or hope, really — I hope that makes this easier, then.”

Harry blinks. “Makes what easier?”

Danica smiles with sympathy, legs dangling. “The past few weeks, I’ve… been seeing someone. And I didn’t think anything of it at first, but now I… I believe it’s serious, and only getting more so. So, Harry, I thought it was time to let you know that it’s been fun, and thanks for taking me to Ibiza and Mykonos and the Amalfi Coast, but I think this is the end of our chapter.”

Harry wonders if his eyebrows are on his forehead, or if they’ve taken up residence somewhere past his hairline. _Oh_. “Oh. Wow, Dan, I’m… I’m happy for you.” His brows furrow, then. “I, er, I appreciate you letting me down easy, but, y’know. I’m happy for you.” He chuckles weakly, feels the padding of his chair give a bit as he relaxes and really sinks into it.

Danica lights up. “You have no idea how good it is to hear that, Harry. I just — I know it can be difficult for you to be involved with anyone because of the photographers and the tabloids and the constant grind of the rumor mill, so I wanted you to hear it from me rather than the _Prophet_ front page now that my beau and I can go public and let the inevitable _stole his girl_ headlines crop up.”

Harry nods. But — “Wait, front page?”

The door to Robards’ office opens with the characteristic loudness of the inches-thick door and the Head Auror marches out. Danica peers over her shoulder for a bit too long once she catches sight of him, her knuckles going white as her grip tightens on Harry’s desk. Harry’s not sure if he laughs or chokes.

“You’re dating Robards?” he hisses in a whisper and reaches out to touch Danica’s knee.

She whips around to face him, flushing crimson, and sets her hand on top of Harry’s. “That isn’t… a false statement.”

That time, Harry laughs. “You’re dating my _boss_.”

Danica looks down at her lap bashfully. “I didn’t mean to, babe.”

“Hell of an upgrade.”

Danica’s lips quirk up at the corners and she reaches out to pinch Harry’s cheek. “Shut it, you.”

“You don’t think he’s a bit… old for you?”

“Love is blind.” Danica’s smile is wry.

“Blind to everything but men in positions of power.” Harry jabs a finger at his own chest. “You’re looking at the supposed favorite for Deputy Head Auror, Dan.”

Danica rolls her eyes. “You’ve been saying that for months.” She slides off his desk and leans over to hug him around the shoulders, kiss his cheek. “But I do like a man who knows his way around the Auror Headquarters, it seems.” As she straightens up, she sighs, hands on her hips. “You’re really okay with this, Harry?”

“You don’t need my ‘okay,’ but I am. Of course I am.” He leans back in his chair and taps his fingertips against the ends of the armrests. “Honestly, I’m over the moon, not only because you’re happy, but also because I was afraid for a second that you’d prove Pansy’s theory that I make all my exes go lesbian.”

“It’s no mere theory if backed by copious evidence. Hello, Mystery Brunette.” It isn’t Danica who responds. Malfoy’s fingers walk along the wall of Harry’s cubicle and he leans against it. He’s closer to Danica than he is to Harry, but Harry’s still startled by the internal flame he feels lick up his spine at his unforeseen presence. “At the very least, it should be widely considered a social pattern. I’ll accept you being an exception to this pattern, though, Mystery Brunette, because you’ve shown Potter up by dumping him for the Head Auror, which is almost, if not more, humiliating than turning his girlfriends off men.”

Harry glares at Malfoy, lets his head drop against the headrest of his chair, but after recovering from his initial shock at Malfoy’s appearance— not only at the Ministry, but here, at Harry’s desk — his lips curve into a lazy smile. Danica laughs brightly, like the sound of a wind chime tinkling and sparkling, and Harry thinks he catches her throw a wink his way. “Always so funny, Draco. I wouldn’t say _dump_ , necessarily, but. Something of the sort. I think it’ll prove to be more of a blessing than a curse.” She wriggles her fingers at the two of them in a little wave, and then strides off, heels tap-tap-tapping increasingly quickly so she can, Harry assumes, catch up with Robards. Malfoy watches her go and turns to Harry to ask, “What does she mean by that? More of a blessing than a curse?” just as Harry says, “What are you doing here?”

Malfoy’s nose wrinkles, and it’s stupidly adorable, and now that Danica’s gone, Malfoy’s taken her spot in the entry to his cubicle, and Harry can see him in all his glory — an immaculately-pressed black button-up tucked into wine-red trousers that hug his calves and thighs and likely his bum, too. Harry bites the inside of his lip.

“That’s how you’ve greeted me on the last two occasions we’ve seen one another, Potter, and to be quite honest, I don’t think it’s very polite. Should I come to expect that you’ll show up on my front step, knock on my door, and when I answer, inquire what I’m doing there?”

Harry considers this, taps the fingers of opposite hands together from pinkie to thumb as if he’s actually mulling over a serious decision and not just pushing Malfoy’s buttons — which, by God, he wouldn’t mind literally doing. “Well, would you let me in?” he asks coyly, and that’s where Malfoy is supposed to look about, check for witnesses, and lean down to kiss him and sit in his lap and let Harry get a handful of —

“What _is_ this?” Malfoy scoffs. He’s picked up Harry’s brocelet from his desk, is dangling it by the charm. “This is — could it be? This might just be the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen. Congratulations, Potter, you’ve considerably lowered your sex appeal by owning this.” He holds it up to his nose to sniff it, as if that might help him discern exactly what it is. Harry would tell him — _it’s a sweatband, Malfoy_ — but he doubts Malfoy would understand, that such a word is even in his vocabulary.

“Just —“ Harry reaches up to snatch it away from him, tosses it onto his desk. “Please ignore that.” His mouth twitches at a smile, though. “If my sex appeal was off the charts before, though, I shouldn’t be too concerned, yeah? If I’ve lowered it —“

Malfoy holds up a hand. “Stop. No.”

Harry waits, but nothing happens. “You’re not going to walk away from me?”

Malfoy looks down at his feet, as if surprised to find himself still standing there a few feet from Harry. “How… how curious. I suppose not. I’m in a good mood today, as it happens.”

“Why is that?” Harry knows Malfoy’s being genuine. Malfoy may have fooled him once — he’s good at lying, but not when it comes to his feelings. His emotions play out on his face like they’ve a mind of their own, like it’s a stage for them to perform on.

That’s when Malfoy smiles a little at him and swivels on his heels to leave Harry alone at his cubicle. Harry pokes out his head, and fuck, if he wasn’t right about his arse in those damn red trousers.

“We have a match today!” Harry calls, earning an entirely disapproving and hypocritical squint from Pansy regarding his volume level as she returns to her desk with a steaming mug. She kisses Malfoy on the cheek in passing. “Just — just in case you didn’t know.”

“You’re forgetting, Potter — Hi, Susan — that I did your bookkeeping. I have MLE’s Quidditch schedule memorized for the next four months.” Malfoy grabs a hold of the corner of the wall as he swings himself around it, disappearing from sight in a flash of long legs and blond hair. Harry’s unconsciously taken a few steps out of his cubicle to stare at him. As he notices this, he also finds Pansy standing in the opening to her own cubicle, gazing at him through the steam curling from her mug. It has no effect on her hair, he notes, fondly recalling Hermione standing above her bubbling cauldron in Potions.

“What?” he mutters, straightening the front of his shirt and attempting to pull himself together in general, as if he hadn’t just been magnetically drawn to his feet and after Malfoy.

Pansy shrugs and sips her drink. She’s not at her best, not at peak deviousness, Harry can tell. But she’s trying, and her true self is getting closer to the surface. Her eyes flicker over him, and he frowns, thinking it predatory at first, but then he can see the laugh in her eyes as she settles down into her chair and crosses her legs, looking much too smug. “You’ll know soon.” _And what the hell does that mean?_

“Know what? Do I already know?” Clem pops up from behind the cubicle at Pansy’s back. He’s been relocated closer to his partner, it seems, and Harry thinks it’s some welcome wagon when all very quickly Pansy startles visibly, gets a harried look in her eyes, and jabs a wordless _Petrificus Totalus_ over her shoulder at Creasey. All Harry knows is that had it been him who’d been ambushed, he would’ve unquestionably dropped his tea. Creasey is lucky enough not to fall, but to remain frigid and upright with his head and shoulders just above the view of the cubicle wall. Harry fights against laughter.

“Fucking hell,” she seethes into the rim of her mug, breathing heavily. She hasn’t looked at Clem once yet, and doesn’t until she takes another sip and sets her mug down onto the flat surface of her desk. “Lesson one, partner. Don’t catch me unawares.” She pokes at his nose with her wand, really presses it in for a moment before shaking her head and releasing. “Fuck’s sake.” She sags into her chair and lets her wand roll onto the desk. “Potter, I may have a new appreciation for your patience.”

Harry smiles, and her clandestine words haven’t been forgotten, but he lets it go for now with a nod toward Creasey. “Would you like me to do the honors?”

Pansy shakes her head and picks up a quill. “Just give me ten minutes.”

*** 

Come late afternoon, the Magical Law Enforcement and International Magical Cooperation teams — as well as the company of Hermione, who’d been running errands for ADAMC at the Ministry all morning — have migrated from the Ministry to the Quidditch pitch.

Harry is in the stands, broom laid across the bench beside him as he fastens his kneepads. On the other side of the broom sits Hermione. Ron is already up in the air, having talked Creasey into dashing quaffles at him to warm up. Pansy’s a few rows up behind them, but there’s no sight of Malfoy yet — not that Harry should even expect it, considering Malfoy has no reason to stay glued to his side like a leech now.

“Alright, Hermione?” he murmurs and offers one of his hands out to her so she can tighten the wrist strap on his glove. She smiles faintly and does so to the point where Harry thinks he’s on the verge of losing blood flow.

“I’m okay,” she answers, and waits expectantly for Harry to offer up his other hand. Once she’s done the other strap, she keeps Harry’s hand in two of her own and sighs, letting them all rest in her lap. “It’s hard to forget about the… the hurt… when I’m without him. But when Ron’s there, it feels like it never happened at all. Which, well, makes sense, considering he thinks it never did.” Her head tilts to the side, eyes cast downward, but for a brief moment when they flicker up as if to gauge whether or not Harry is paying attention, if he wants to hear more. He smiles encouragingly. “I know you don’t agree with what I did. Nobody does, really. But I just… I have a lot on my plate. And because Ron is with me, he shares my plate, even if his own plate would be rather empty without me. It’s one less thing on both our plates. And even if it was… _completely_ against everything I stand for, every way I want the women around me and around the world to take charge of their lives, I… I just breathe easier. Like this.”

Harry rubs his gloved thumb against Hermione’s. “As long as you feel better.” He hesitates, looks out at the field. “But don’t you think, Hermione, that it could happen again? I mean, I’m on your side. I should’ve — I was so distracted, I hardly gave mind to Ron —“

“By Draco,” Hermione interjects matter-of-factly.

“— By Draco,” Harry sighs, surrendering enough to give her a little smile. “I hardly spent time with him, talked to him about it maybe once. If I’d known, I could’ve steered him in the right direction… I won’t, Hermione, I won’t let it happen again, let him make a crapshoot mistake like that —“

“Harry.” Hermione laughs weakly. “Oh, Harry, no. Unless you played cupid with Pansy and Ronald, I don’t blame you for a thing. This had nothing to do with you.” She squeezes his hand, and Harry watches as her eyes drift in Ron’s direction on the pitch. He thinks, if he looks close enough, he can see the cloudy, light gray sky reflect in her dark irises, the dark shapes of goalposts silhouetted against them. “Did you — You said you talked about _it_. What does that mean?”

A sour taste fills Harry’s mouth at the memory; Malfoy abandoning him on the couch, slamming the living room door behind him, being so high he couldn’t really feel the regret or emptiness until it was hours too late. And then he just feels guilty, because that’s all completely unrelated to Ron. “Er, he just. We were smoking. And —“ He wrinkles his nose. Talking to Hermione about sex is what he imagines talking to his mother about sex would be like. She’d been the very first to encourage Harry to explore the boundaries of his sexuality come his infamous string of trysts during Auror training, and the one to whom he’d ended up pouring out not so much his heart but his muddled mind when it’d felt so new and unfamiliar but also so right to sleep with a man. _So_. “He just said you’d not done it in three months,” he rushes to say, sniffing and rubbing at his nose with the back of his hand to disguise the words leaving his mouth.

Hermione is quiet for about three ticks of an unheard, unseen minute hand before she tilts back her head with a laugh that’s like the lovechild of a hoot and a cackle, a lovely laugh that makes the slight flush on Harry’s cheeks worth enduring. “Merlin, Harry. It’s silly. You were always the only one brave enough to call Voldemort by his name, but you can’t say _sex_ to me? To my face?” She bites her lower lip and grins. “You’re silly.”

Harry looks away and shrugs with an attempt at a casual smile. “I know.”

“Say it.”

“What?”

“That you’re ridiculous.”

“Hermione, I —“

“Oh, fine, but I digress. Yes, that was certainly true, the three-months-thing. The past three months, or even more, honestly, have been the most successful of my career. And it’s fantastic and exciting, Harry, all the talk I’ve been helping stir up, the change I’ve had a hand in making, but it’s also exhausting. You know my hours. Sure, I’m my own boss for the most part, but I’m also a notorious brown-noser, even if that means it’s my own arse I’m kissing.” Harry’s eyes flicker to Hermione with amusement, and she just smirks and shakes her head, shoves at his shoulder playfully. “So I have to be my own best employee, too, and overachieve and work long hours. The times I saw Ronald — they were sparse. And I didn’t want those few times to be all about having sex, because that’s not what he is to me — some sort of stress-relief mechanism to come home to and forget about when I leave the next morning. Plus, I was incredibly tired. Just.” She shrugs, releases Harry’s hand so she can lace her own fingers together in her lap. “I realize I could’ve loosened my own reins a bit. But then again, would I be where I am right now if I hadn’t? I’m not sure.”

“You can never be sure.” Harry rubs her shoulder absently before grabbing his broom. The overly enthusiastic referee is puffing on the whistle, urging everyone into the air. Harry’s robes flap around him, already sticking to his skin from the early summer warmth. “But, Hermione… If you’d told him that, I think he could’ve understood. I don’t think he would’ve ever —“

Hermione nods quickly to cut him off. “I know. I know. And… that’s partly why I did what I did.” Harry doesn’t think it’s reason enough, but then Hermione gives him a nudge to the arse with her foot that would’ve had him toppling down rows of descending benches had he not been so exceptionally elegant with a broom. He kicks off and smiles over his shoulder at her, just as her voice rises an octave in delight. “Oh! Hi, Draco!”

Harry rolls his eyes, wind blowing his overgrown fringe from his forehead as he ascends to join his MLE team. He’ll be damned if it’s not a joke, but then there comes a fairly hoity-toity shout from a hundred feet below.

“Don’t suck, Potter! This is my mother’s first Quidditch match ever, and if you give the sport a bad name I’ll blame it wholly on _your_ bad name.” A clearing of the throat. “Pans, darling! Let’s limit you to two concussed victims this match, shall we? Save the Healers some time, the patrons some money.”

Ron doesn’t look at Harry when he slows down at his side. He’s gaping at the stands below through the bristles of Harry’s broom.

“Heeeey, blondie! Oh, and Mrs. Blondie?” Creasey hollers, waving his hand so wildly he thwacks IMC’s Seeker across the back of the head, which earns Harry a murderous glare from him, as if he’s the very raison d’être of this motley Quidditch crew from MLE.

Ron’s eyes are still unfocused. “Hey, Harry? Ever have that really, really strange dream where the wife of a war criminal and mother of your Hogwarts rival your coworkers were hunting for over a month shows up at Quidditch?”

Harry dares to follow the line of Ron’s gaze to the stands, to the two very blond heads. He should be ecstatic to see Malfoy, because _essentially_ , he’d accepted Harry’s invitation to their match, but his eyes, like Ron’s, are drawn to the poised figure beside him in head-to-toe black — whether it’s for mourning or just a Malfoy custom, he’s unsure.

“Think you’re awake, Ron,” he mumbles.

“Huh.”

The referee blows the whistle shrilly, and the Snitch whips past Harry’s head and out of sight. Pansy screams reprovingly, Harry doesn’t move, and IMC has ten points before he’s even torn his eyes from Narcissa Malfoy in the flesh.


	18. Chapter 18

It’s been an hour and Harry has yet to catch the Snitch. He’s not doing poorly, necessarily, and neither is his team, if one fails to count the incident with International Magical Cooperation’s vicious Seeker with a newfound enmity for Harry — clearly the only one to blame for the behavior of his teammates — who currently holds onto his sanity and grits his teeth against the pain of his bruised jaw. They’d been on the tail of the Snitch, he and Harry, and their trajectory had happened to take them zooming past Pansy, newly reinstated as a Beater after her many vocal appeals. Her argument in defense of her innocence had been that the Seeker’s head had looked unreasonably like a Bludger. The referee bought it, or then he’d been Confunded — either by Pansy or Draco, or perhaps even Narcissa. Ron had looked to Harry after the resolution of the ordeal — it had involved some finger-waggling and bartering with the ref on Pansy’s part — and said, “She’s bloody mad, that Pandora. Reminds me of, like… Bloody hell. Lavender.”

Harry had thought it might have called Hermione to action, the fact Pansy was attracting so much attention to herself, but each time he looks to the stands, he finds her only less invested in the match and more and more engaged in conversation with Narcissa fucking Malfoy. Draco isn’t even present to mediate between the two parties (good and bad, in Harry’s eyes) — he sits a few rows down from them beside _Ginny_ , who’d made an appearance about a half hour into the game. Harry hasn’t had the chance to catch his breath and ask Ron what’s up with that, because every time he pauses to even _try_ and process, to think _Ah, that’s what had Malfoy so light on his feet earlier_ , to think _What the hell had the Wizengamot been thinking?_ and _Why didn’t they include me in the jury for no reason so I could meddle in cases in which I have personal involvement?_ , IMC’s Seeker breezes past, bearing his purpling jaw with pride, or the Snitch flits by, or Pansy gets in his line of sight (between him and the Malfoys) and shakes her bat at him threateningly. She’s in somewhat of a dark place, and Harry believes all she really wants right now is a win.

Ron’s doing well, he thinks. After his initial spook about Narcissa, he’d moved onto defending the hoops like an iron gate, and based on the easy smile on Ron’s face, that loose, smug one that’s hiding the giddy, boastful one just beneath the surface, it’s likely they’re in the lead. A quick glance at the scorecards confirms it for Harry. It must be nice, Harry thinks ironically, that if Ron’s brain is free of problems, a blank slate wiped even cleaner by Obliviation on which even the presence of Narcissa fades into the background, it’s no wonder he is able to maintain focus.

Harry, on the other hand.

It’s not like the match when Draco had been his opponent. That time, he’d given in — he’d let himself stare, ogle Malfoy’s arse while he’d been perched on that broomstick — but this time he’s trying to no avail, because his vanity is begging him to perform, to impress Malfoy, impress his _mother_ , even, while his curiosity babbles just a bit louder, an endless stream of questions that he knows he’ll get answers to as soon as the match is up but which decide to eat him alive in the moment. Right now. And the fact that Malfoy isn’t even watching pisses him off a bit, too. It’s not as if he’ll have a legitimate reason to later tell Ginny that he’s _awfully grateful that she so captivated and entertained Malfoy during the terribly boring match in which he would’ve liked that role himself_ , given Ginny knows zip about their relations, but he’s still tempted. So tempted. Anything to

 _Oh — that’s it._ He won’t get answers until the match ends, until he does his job. You know, until he _Seeks_. Which would mean channeling both vanity and curiosity into one outlet.

“ _Finally_ ,” Pansy sighs-slash-yells dramatically as Harry flies past her at the first glint of gold in the sunlight poking through a slit between gray clouds. “I was wondering when you’d extricate your head from your arse. How’d you manage that, Potter?” Her voice gets quieter with distance the further away Harry speeds on the Snitch’s tail, as well as when Pansy directs her voice in a different direction, likely at a different target. “Now that you know how, maybe you could teach _Clem_ a thing or two about it!” she squawks pointedly.

A red figure enters Harry’s peripheral vision. It continues to suck that MLE had drawn the blue uniforms at the very start of the tournament, because on the Quidditch pitch red, to Harry, means comrade, ally, someone who won’t hip-check you off your broom to highly unlikely but still embarrassing death. He doesn’t dare remove his eyes from the Snitch as he swerves after it into the inner structure of the stands, but he knows this red is no friend, that it’s the Seeker who’s expedited his dislike of Harry to a vendetta against him in the short hour of their match.

“Oh no you don’t,” Harry mutters under his breath as he hears the telltale whoosh of the IMC Seeker making the same sharp turn, hot on his tail, close enough to hear his strained breathing as if it’s hissed through a tightly-shut jaw. It’s a risk to look away from the Snitch, he knows it, but he does, if only to meet the blazing eyes of the man behind him, move slightly to his right, and stop abruptly in a way that makes his broom rear like a horse and sends the Seeker flying right past him and into an unanticipated plank of wood in the supporting structure of the stands. When there’s a pained, _“Doh_ ,” and the perhaps-knocked-unconscious Seeker falls limply off his broom, he takes a second to cast an _Arresto Momentum_ down after him before he dodges the plank, leans forward on his broom to accelerate, and closes his hand over the Snitch, whose flapping wings curl relax and flatten into its sides.

He emerges, panting, from a gap in the framework of the stands, tossing the little, golden ball up and down in his non-dominant hand — extra mojo points for that — and while he’s never been quite able to re-experience the feeling of coming out on top with the cool metal of the Snitch between his fingers — or in his mouth — and the screams and adoring hollers of at least two out of four Hogwarts houses — Slytherin never did bloody cheer for him — it feels pretty damn good when Ron calls out, “Harry’s got the Snitch!” and all eyes turn to him, and then track down to the sprawled, human shape on the grass far below in stretching silence. Well, maybe that part doesn’t feel so good, and the total number of eyes on him is twice the number of players plus the fledgling crowd the Interdepartmental Tournament tends to draw out, so it’s no horde of devotees.

“He’ll be fine,” Harry says nonchalantly, catching the Snitch and gesturing vaguely down at his comatose opponent. It’s then that, as if given permission, his team closes in on him with a chorus of hurrahs and he sees Hermione hop up onto the bench beside Narcissa, clapping and jumping up and down in place. Clem tousles his hair and Pansy punches him joyously in the shoulder and after a couple of awkward maneuvers he’s up on Ron’s shoulders, laughing and yes, _preening_ at the praise. With resentful looks at Harry, the whole IMC team slinks down to ground level to revive their teammate, and Ron roars at them while his hands cling to Harry’s calves, something like, “I told you, you _punks_! I told you this morning! I knew it was coming! The MLE boys are _back_!” and had Pansy not been on strict orders to avoid Ron like she’s been restricted by a restraining order, Harry is certain she would point out that there are women on their team, as well.

“We’re not all guys here, Ron,” Harry corrects, and while he’s not sure if it penetrates Ron’s bubble of victory, he doesn’t listen for a response, because his eyes seek out Malfoy. Malfoy stands beside Ginny in the very front row of benches, elbows on the railing as he claps lazily, though Ginny’s mouth is moving with words Harry can’t hear but that Malfoy seems intent on taking in. His fingers curl into his own thighs and he reaches for his broom, still hovering by his side, so he can slip off Ron’s shoulders and onto it. Ron distractedly smacks Harry’s arse before turning to high-five Creasey, whose hand he clasps as he raises it victoriously into the air and points at the IMC team on the ground with a hoot of, “Drinks on Gert Willoughby!” and at least Harry’s able to put a name to the face that’s been so ardently hunting him down the past hour.

Harry’s hope that his cape billows behind him with the sort of elegance that Malfoy would admire is rendered useless as he flies down and stops to hover where Ginny and Malfoy are standing, because Malfoy doesn’t even look until Ginny does and Harry’s already been stopped for several seconds. Malfoy is still absentmindedly slow-clapping from Harry’s winning catch, and he frowns down at his palms when he notices this and slides them into the pockets of his trousers.

“Oh, hey, Harry,” Ginny says without much life behind her words though it’s been weeks since he’s last seen her. Her nails are bitten short where they curve into the wooden railing separating her and Malfoy from Harry, and when she tilts her head to the side to smile at him, the wind tosses a few locks of her bright hair into her eyes. “Good to see you still have it in you.”

“Hey, thanks.” Harry smiles, but it’s stilted. He and Ginny may not be as close as they once were, but he can still tell when something’s bugging her. He makes a mental note to talk to her later, ask her about her life — but he’s selfish, he’ll admit it, and he has his own asking to do first before he can think about Ginny. His eyes flicker up to where Narcissa Malfoy sits regally beside Hermione. She’d always had impeccable posture.

“Harry!” It’s Ron, down on the grass and striding with Creasey, Pansy, and the rest of the two teams toward the locker rooms. “Handmaiden! If I don’t see you there soon, I’ll come and find you.” Harry thinks it’s supposed to be a threat, but Ron’s never been very good at intimidation. Harry grins and shoots him a thumbs-up. When his gaze returns to Ginny and Malfoy, Ginny faces her hands, picking at her cuticles, and Malfoy’s eyes pierce right through Harry as his thin lips curve in a gentle crescent shape.

“Can we talk, Malfoy?” Harry murmurs. He wants answers. It’s hypocritical, needing them so much when he himself has things locked away in his mind that Malfoy deserves to know more than Harry’s burning curiosity deserves to be satisfied.

Malfoy lifts his wrist as if to check the time, but he’s not wearing a wristwatch. He’s never worn a wristwatch, at least to Harry’s recollection. Then he stretches his arms up and behind his head, so his black shirt pulls against his flat stomach, untucks itself a bit from the waistband of his trousers. “I suppose,” he says in an equally soft tone, then puts a hand on Ginny’s shoulder as he turns to face his mother, balancing on the balls of his feet. “Mother, let Hermione take you and Ginevra to the Muggle pub, won’t you? Oh, don’t look at me like that. You don’t have to speak to them. Merlin knows you need a drink after all of this.” Malfoy pats Ginny’s shoulder and then as he twirls again, back around, he throws over his shoulder, “Thank you, Hermione. I’ll meet you all there.”

Harry’s too distracted by the cold, calculating stare of Narcissa Malfoy to notice that Malfoy’s hoisted himself up onto the railing, is literally standing there in front of Harry, several storeys from the ground and just a step away from sudden death on impact.

“Budge up, Potter,” he urges in a mutter, and though Harry startles in shock, Malfoy manages, with his hands on Harry’s shoulders, to slide onto the back of his broom, and hell, does Harry have a flashback right then and there. Malfoy’s arms wrap around his waist, and when Harry doesn’t fly, doesn’t do anything, in fact, Malfoy sighs against the back of his neck. “Forget how to work the broom, did you? It’s a good thing I didn’t speak too soon and compliment you on your win and your competence.” One of Malfoy’s hands shifts slightly, lowers itself on Harry’s stomach, but it’s just to pull himself only more flush against Harry from behind. And his mother is right _there_. Harry feels like a Montague under Lady Capulet’s watchful eye. He clears his throat.

“Where should I —?”

“To the moon? Perhaps the stars, if we have time? To the _ground_ , obviously, you brainless git.”

Harry rolls his eyes. As he takes to descending toward the doorway by the locker rooms with Malfoy, once they’re out of sight of Ginny, Hermione, and Narcissa, Malfoy’s mouth presses to his neck, if only to smile against his skin.

Malfoy disembarks the broom before Harry does, and once Harry’s feet hit the ground, he lets go of the broom, and it flies to park itself in some unseen broom shed, he assumes. He’s never followed it.

“Is Ginny okay?” he asks, because he’s not thinking straight, his own nubby nails scratching against the back of his sweaty neck.

“You should hear about it from her. Though, I do think it’s likely you’ll hear it from the He-Weasel first, given his propensity to spew not-his-own-business about everything and nothing at everyone and —“

“Okay,” Harry says, tries not to chuckle just out of tension, and steps forward, closer to Malfoy. Malfoy chews on his lower lip, hands behind his back and out of Harry’s sight. “Don’t — don’t you want to be with your mother right now?”

Malfoy’s lips quirk upward. “I have the rest of her life to be with Mother. However, given how much she smokes, I’m not sure how long that will be — certainly still longer than the life expectancy of an Azkaban prisoner.” Malfoy starts toward the locker rooms, so Harry follows, watches him, mystified. His eyebrows jerk so hard he can feel his forehead fold.

“She’s — she’s, er, free?”

“ _She’s, she’s, er, free,_ Potter,” Malfoy murmurs, and when Harry meets his eyes, it doesn’t even seem mocking. Malfoy’s hand starts out by his elbow at first, and it travels slowly up his bicep and over his shoulder until he’s managed to find himself behind Harry, walking slightly off to his left so his toes don’t collide with Harry’s heels. His hands link across Harry’s chest, enclosing Harry in the loop of his arms. “Keep walking,” he adds, and it’s like a command from Harry’s own brain, a synapse firing, because his body obeys as fast and easy as if it had been his own subconscious decision to move. “She was indeed an accomplice in a crime that’s only ever been successfully carried out by clinically insane Death Eaters and your godfather, but she turned my father in, after all, even if he was just a sack of flesh by then. They didn’t do any damage during those months underground. So… bail was posted. Sure, a rather hefty fine was incurred. I won’t be able to purchase any houses and do what I do the very best for a little while. But why did they post bail, you ask, Potter? Because, and I truly believe this, they want to use my mother’s ingenuity with that map to reinforce the arguably shoddy security at Azkaban.” They’ve long since passed through the doors, and the locker room is empty by the time they reach it. Harry’s ears catch the tail end of the whip-crack of an Apparition just as Draco marshals him in. “And because Grangers must do as Grangers do, Hermione’s threats to reveal to the public the stark details of the egregiously poor mental and physical wellness of the prisoners may just have helped, as well. I really do not understand that woman sometimes — nobody asks her to do things, but she does them anyway. It’s absurd.” And because Harry doesn’t know where else to go, he stops in front of his usual locker, strips his hands free of his gloves and lets them fall to the floor. He presses his palms against the cool metal of the locker, and it burns, it burns cold, because his body temperature has been rising consistently since Malfoy plastered himself to his back and he’s still slick with sweat and under too, too many protective layers glued head to toe to his skin. Malfoy exhales softly, and that’s hot, too, and so are his lips just below Harry’s hairline at the nape of his neck where they brush. “Generosity, kindness, and loaned intellect out of the pure goodness of one’s heart? Yeah. Absurd,” Malfoy whispers. Harry loses the touch of his lips for a second — perhaps Malfoy’s smiling, his lips tensed and stretched across his mouth with the motion — but then his forehead drops to Harry’s shoulder and he sighs out the most gorgeous high-pitched whine. He expects Malfoy’s arms to withdraw — he realizes now that he’s always anticipating it, that moment when things will fall to shreds because it’s all just too impossibly good to be real — but they tighten around his neck, and though Harry’s sweat is seeping through the layers of his blue uniform and Malfoy must hate it, he loathes _the_ unclean, his forehead rubs against the nape of Harry’s neck and his knees limply give out beneath him. Harry knows this because he feels them knock against the backs of his legs, feels the sudden gravity of Malfoy’s full weight dragging him downward, and Malfoy whines again, or whimpers, really, that time.

When Harry removes his palm from the locker it doesn’t come away easy, stuck with sweat, and he covers Malfoy’s linked hands with it, squeezing and breathing him in and god, does he smell good, clean and woodsy and floral with the June breeze in his hair. Harry twists to work his arms around Malfoy’s waist and drag him around, press him into the locker, and the halo of Malfoy’s arms doesn’t break but to twist fingers into Harry’s hair and to smooth over his jaw. Harry hasn’t even met his eyes yet because he’s apprehensive about that, too, about that fight-or-flight look, or definitely-not-fight-unless-it’s-to-spar-verbally-or-flight look, but when his eyes flicker to Malfoy’s just as his hand squeezes Harry’s chin, purses his lips together for him, Malfoy’s eyes are dark and needy and there’s a ghost of a smile on his lips as his head lolls back against the locker. It feels like minutes or hours that they spend in that strange, magnetic force of a limbo that encases them in stillness, stillness all but for the breaths filling the space between and the sweat dripping down from Harry’s mussed fringe to his forehead.

“You’re disgusting right now,” Malfoy grumbles, but he cards his fingers into Harry’s fringe nevertheless. Harry’s positive he himself is the only thing keeping Malfoy still on his feet.

“Only right now?” Harry challenges. He’s proud he’s even able to force out a coherent thought — and in this case, that thought is Malfoy said _right now_ , and that’s almost _nice_ , and he’s touching him fucking everywhere, so why haven’t they kissed yet?

Malfoy licks his lower lip. His head twitches, almost as if to jerk in a ’no,’ but then he smushes his hand over Harry’s mouth to cover it, shuts his eyes, leans bodily into the locker. His smile is still in place. “I have no doubt you’re curious about my intentions right now, Potter. Or perhaps you’re still more curious about my mother, about the technicalities of her freedom, because you _would_ be, you would be more interested in the uninteresting than in the simple reality that someone stands before you so completely and utterly deranged that he wants you, even when you’re sweating like a pig, _especially_ when you’re sweating like a pig, because, like I said, he’s mental.” Harry can feel a faint but warm gust of air curl against his neck when Malfoy sighs out through his nose, adjusts his feet just so that they frame Harry’s and he slides down a couple of inches against the locker until they’re eye level. Harry’s Adam’s apple feels like it’s hardened to a rock and he may not be able to swallow but hey, at least he can breathe, and he shakes his head faintly, palms moving from Draco’s hips where they hold him steady and upright to the small of his back as he corrals him against the locker, humming lowly as he kisses the side of his neck. Malfoy’s head tilts, his fingers respond with an eager tug at Harry’s hair, though not strong enough to pull him away.

“And — _oh_ ,” Malfoy breathes, and Harry feels the vibration of his neck at those non-words against his cheek, nose tucking itself against a vein that stands out strong and blue on the side of Malfoy’s wan neck. “And I’ve been… Last week, everything went so wrong so very quickly like it did the last time things went very, _very_ wrong. But I came back from that, for the most part. It was by sheer, stupid luck this time that I even was able to get my mother back.” Malfoy must feel it instantly when Harry laughs against his neck, because his body tenses, but only to exhale out a quiet chuckle as his nails bite into Harry’s scalp. “Yes, I know. You _did_ wish me luck, you absolute dolt. And it was luck that gave me Mother, but it wasn’t luck that turned everything around after the war for me, it was…” Malfoy’s voice trails off, not because he’s at a loss for words, it seems, but because his pulse quickens beneath Harry’s mouth as he kisses slowly upward along that vein and his biceps clench around Draco’s sides, like walls closing in on him. Malfoy’s hands drop to his shoulders, find purchase there.

“It was you,” Harry finishes for him, trying to rein it in even in the slightest as he breathes hot against the underside of Malfoy’s jaw. The only way he can discern anymore where his body starts and ends is the soft pressure between them of their off-sync breaths, chests and stomachs rising. He feels like a total dick, because Malfoy _is_ a dick, too, but Harry had called him a liar that night he’d found out about Narcissa’s letter, he’d told him he hadn’t changed. He has, of course. It’s ridiculous to claim he hasn’t. Malfoy grew up, after all, and even if he hadn’t, he’s liked by others, he’s made a name for himself, he does what he enjoys, wrangles with personal demons far less terrifying than Voldemort or his father but present nonetheless. But he can’t say that. He can’t fill in the gap any longer, because putting words into Malfoy’s mouth is like asking for a fist to the jaw or a knee in the bollocks, and if a knee in the bollocks wouldn’t shatter this precious, hot, sticky moment between them, Harry doesn’t know what else would. So he finishes his sentence in his own head with the help of his mind’s little Malfoy, perhaps possessed by Harry’s own wishful thinking. _That’s right, Potter._ I _did that. I turned my life around. And if I did it once, I could sure as hell do it again. And to me, that means… coming to you._

No, Malfoy would never think that, much less say it aloud, to _Harry_ , of all people. The only time Malfoy is ever melodramatic is if the drama revolves around himself and only him.

Malfoy lets Harry’s declaration hover in the air between them, still loose-limbed and picking at a loose thread by the shoulder of Harry’s jersey, and even if his mind seems elsewhere, Harry knows he’s there with him because the pump of his blood lurches every time Harry shifts even a hair against him.

“Oh, shut up,” whispers Malfoy much too late to fit cohesively into their near one-sided conversation. His arms drop from Harry’s neck and shimmy down between them to tug at the hem of Harry’s jersey. He shakes his head rapidly, and Harry sees now that, with the small distance put between them by Malfoy’s jostling arms, his lips are red and raw and he can only imagine how long he’s been biting at them out of Harry’s sight. “Get this — get this off, get it all off before I change my mind and retract every word of that bloody anthology of birdbrained thoughts I've just voiced.”

Harry thinks there’s nothing in there worth retracting, but absolutely everything is worth keeping Malfoy there, alone, just them two, for seconds, minutes longer. He’s out of his jersey fast, and Malfoy takes him by the shoulders, walks him away from the lockers with a sort of faraway concentration in his eyes, and Harry almost slips but when he does there’s a bench to catch him. It’s too much fuss, the boots and the knee pads and the complicated trousers and apparently Malfoy thinks so, too, because as he drops to straddle Harry’s lap, his fingers move to undo just the very top few buttons of his trousers and not much else. Malfoy’s hand rubs against Harry’s lower stomach, through the coarse hair there, and then he tucks his hand past his as much as he can manage, the heel of his hand kneading into Harry’s dick and — _oh, hello, he’s been with us for a while, then_ — Harry has to grab onto the edge of the bench with one hand for balance and onto Malfoy’s side with the other to retain his sanity.

“Do you wanna,” he starts breathlessly, gazing at Malfoy’s hand without shame, but he never finishes the thought, firstly because he grunts instead of using his words, and secondly because Malfoy’s lips brush against his so closely the moment after.

“I said shut up,” Malfoy breathes. He chuckles quietly, so soft that Harry can’t hear it but can see the crinkle of it around his eyes and feel the shudder of his breath. His fingers, long and thin, cup the shape of Harry’s hard-on through his underwear.

“I, just, let me speak. Do you wanna, _fuck_ , move to the showers?” Harry grinds out, and it’s a battle in his mind to choose which hand he should free up so he can hold Malfoy’s face the way he needs to in order to goad him into kissing Harry the way he _needs_ it. It ends up being the one on Malfoy’s side that meanders up to cup his jaw because Harry’s quite sure it’s his other hand that’s anchoring them both to the small, backless bench. When he draws Malfoy in by his jaw, he, _god bless_ , kisses Harry back soft and warm and a little wet and it’s everything, even if it’s cut short.

The wet inside of Malfoy’s lower lip drags against the corner of Harry’s mouth as he pecks his cheek, breathes out against it. “I’m not,” Malfoy murmurs, licking at the skin just below Harry’s outgrown sideburn, beside his ear, “going to,” he hastily undoes more of Harry’s trousers so he can worm his hand deeper into his trousers, rubbing against sweaty thigh skin and moving against the friction of damp cloth until he can rub against Harry’s balls through his briefs. He nips at Harry’s ear too before he gets out another word, and it’s cruel because Harry’s hanging onto each and every one of them, just waiting for the next, like Malfoy’s got him in the palm of his hand… which he does. He’s back to stroking Harry’s dick but still through the layer of underwear separating their skin. “We’re not going to — to _fuck_ in the dirty showers of a locker room.” Malfoy laughs and suckles at the skin beside Harry’s ear. “No, no. I’m simply going to make you come in your pants, and then you’ll use those showers all by your lonesome, after which you’ll be forced to think of nothing and no one but me all night. Your friends will be around, as will your sycophants and your enemies from the opposing team, and they’ll be busy talking your ear off, begging for your attention, but do you know who will be there as well? I will, of course. You like to receive, Potter, but you also like to give, and if I don’t let you give, then. Well. We’ll see what happens.” Harry watches through bleary eyes and gloriously unfogged glasses — the byproduct of Hermione’s new charmwork — as Malfoy licks his lips and drops his chin so his eyes are focused south. He bites his tongue just so the tip of it pokes out from between his teeth, and Harry’s breath comes out trembling as he shifts forth to kiss his top lip and the skin just below his pointy nose, to which Malfoy’s unresponsive except for a small quirk of his mouth which Harry would gleefully take and pocket and run away with if such a thing were possible.

“Draco, _please_ —“ Harry’s prepared for a complaint about the name, but he gets something else.

“Shh.” Malfoy lifts his gaze to Harry’s face and smirks, the tips of their noses grazing. “Lube up my hand, won’t you?”

“God, yes,” Harry breathes, and he shuts his eyes to channel his magic, his fingers stroking the longer locks of Malfoy’s hair behind his ear as he pictures the trail the spell would take to reach from Malfoy’s scalp, down his jaw and neck and shoulder, running through the veins in his arm and the prominent bones of his wrist to reach the baby-soft palm of his hand. Harry hears Malfoy hum appreciatively, and then he’s tugging at the waistband of Harry’s briefs and wet, slightly cold fingers are wrapping around him, sending a wave of chills and goosebumps up his back. Harry cracks his eyes open when Malfoy doesn’t move at first, finds that he’s rolling up his sleeve with his other hand, and mutters, “of _course_ ,” to himself only for Malfoy to hear it clear as day, shoot him a narrow-eyed glare and tighten the ring of his fingers around the base of Harry’s cock.

He must still be in a good mood, generous, even, because the torture lasts mere seconds and then he’s jerking Harry fast and alternating between licking into his mouth and breathing hot against it. When Harry comes it’s anticlimactic — stifled swears and _Draco_ and spunk spattering against his own, bare stomach because that’s where Malfoy aims it when Harry croaks out an, “ _I’m gonna_.” After Malfoy kisses him one last time, he draws back with a stinging bite to Harry’s lower lip and slips out of his lap without pause. Harry pants, greedily filling his lungs with the musty air around them, and gazes at Malfoy standing before him through a mussed fringe.

Malfoy leans into his hip, produces his wand, and idly spells his hand clean. He shifts his weight and Harry doesn’t miss the way the stretchy, maroon fabric of his trousers moves with him, oblivious to his own disheveled state (cock out, shirtless, sweating buckets) for as long as Malfoy’s before him without a hair out of place.

“Pull yourself together, yeah?” Harry could be imagining things, but he thinks Malfoy bats his eyelashes. He tucks his wand back into his pocket, flings open Pansy’s locker to peer into the mirror on the door. “I’ll see you soon, Potter.” He flashes Harry a wry grin before Disapparating on the spot.

Harry shuts his eyes, leans his elbows on his knees, his face in his hands. How he’s going to make it twenty feet to the showers in one piece, or the Handmaiden, is an unsolved mystery.

***

Pansy whips around in a panic to face the bar, the blunt ends of her thick hair stabbing her in the eye as she does, or at least that’s how it feels.

Draco hasn’t made it to the Handmaiden yet — still likely playing catch with Potter’s balls — and aside from Clem, who’s spent the past ten minutes flirting with the now-conscious but very straight and dumbass Seeker off the IMC team once he realized Pansy wasn’t having any of his advances, she has no allies here. Pansy Parkinson is alone at the bar. She could always go for the Muggles, but she’s never been very good at keeping secrets unless they’re Draco’s — not even her own — and, plus, protecting the Statute while half-drunk takes a degree effort she doesn’t have in her right then. So she’s been drowning in her pint instead, short legs swinging on the barstool, as she wizard-watches. Ron slams down a third pint, launches into his fourth retelling of Potter’s winning Golden Snitch snatch though he hadn’t even seen it _nor_ could he have possibly seen it. Granger looks content at his side, stroking his bicep through his tight shirt, and she’s fine. She’s fine with everything but the Pandora charade, because goddammit, her parents may be ridiculous, status-seeking upper-middle class Purebloods attempting to still pass as old money when all the old money’s been spent, but they named her Pansy fucking Parkinson and she’s not going to be anyone but Pansy fucking Parkinson. If she’s going to have to enter a dissociative state to deal with her feelings for Ron Weasley, she can’t _also_ dissociate from her identity, from her very Pansy essence. It’s all she has.

Mindlessly glaring at Hermione Granger leads to observing Narcissa, whom Granger still manages to be entertaining, probably with her photographically-memorized Communist Manifesto. Pansy supposes she could count Narcissa as an ally, but approaching Narcissa would mean approaching Granger, who’d made her feelings about Pansy very clear. They’d acknowledged one another’s presence, and that’s enough for Pansy. Cissa knows how much Pansy loves Draco, that she would’ve kept him safe and sane in her absence, even if they’d fought for a solid chunk of it.

And then beside Narcissa is Ginny Weasley. She’s frecklier in person than she is on the covers of witches’ Quidditch and gossip magazines, and at the moment, she’s also a hell of a lot mopier. Pansy didn’t notice her drop in during the match, but she also hasn’t seen her speak a word since her arrival at the pub with Granger and Cissa, being dragged in behind the former like a wet rag on a leash and leaving a snail trail on the ground. The slumped shoulders and thin-lipped frown don’t suit her. She’d be better off crushing her brother at arm-wrestling, by the look of her smooth biceps, maybe. Or being hit on by a well-meaning but equally mopey fit girl.

 _I take it back,_ thinks Pansy rapidly when Weasley — the female Weasley — catches her eye. Pansy doesn’t hold her gaze. That’s precisely the moment that she swivels faster on the squeaky barstool than she’d thought possible, and her hair pricks her in the eyes. She draws a swirl into the condensation on her glass, watches as Clem fails miserably at darts and nearly pokes a nearby patron’s eye out on his next throw.

“Pint of lager and a packet of crisps, please.”

Pansy has a sudden urge to check her lipstick, a habit that’s ninety percent vanity and ten percent compulsiveness, because when one morphs one’s lips, the color will never bloody fade or smear. But still, she has the urge, because it’s undoubtedly Ginny Weasley standing beside her, leaning into the bar, clad in a thin-strapped tank top and low-slung boyfriend jeans and — Birkenstocks? Pansy lifts her chin slightly, doesn’t turn her head. At that angle, it’s a miracle she can spy from the corners of her eyes. The bartender, serving Ginny’s beer, gives her a quizzical look before tossing the crisp bag onto the counter.

“You’re the little bitch who slept with my brother,” Ginny says casually. The plastic of the crisps packet makes a gnarly noise that grinds Pansy’s teeth when she opens it.

She clears her throat, eyes fixed ahead. “If you’re referring to my height when you say ‘little,’ then I suppose that’s an accurate assessment,” she answers.

Ginny snorts. Pansy sighs deeply.

“Yeah. I guess I am. Personality-wise, though, ‘big bitch’ doesn’t have the same ring to it.”

Pansy rolls her eyes, runs her forefingers just below her lashlines tiredly. “Takes one to know one.” When, for several seconds, all she hears from Ginny is the crunch of potato crisps, she looks over, lips pursed, to find her staring with raised brows. “I’m referring to Granger. Not you.”

Ginny shrugs, wipes the salt from her lips with the back of a hand that’s as freckled as her cheek. “I know. She’s told me all about Pandora, the Auror Headquarters skank.”

Pansy’s hands splay out on the counter and her jaw clenches. Her fingernails, blue in accordance with MLE’s Quidditch colors, fizzle into a crimson red color. “Salazar’s balls, my name is not Pan _dora_!”

Ginny’s eyes are on Pansy’s nails, genuine confusion etched into the wrinkles on her forehead, but she shakes it off like a pro. “Really?” She blinks. “Just Pansy?”

The red in her nails cools down, mixes with a blue tint. “Pansy. Pandora just tastes better in Granger’s mouth.”

Ginny’s look is unreadable, but there’s something of a smile at the corners of her lips. Pansy decides it’s her turn to sway the conversation.

“Why’d you show up to our match today, then, huh? We’re all kinds of awful.”

“I like to watch Ron and Harry play. Reminds me of school.” Ginny pauses. “I needed a pick-me-up.” Pansy figures an explanation is coming before it’s even out. “My… My girlfriend, she — maybe you remember her, Luna Lovegood?”

Pansy scoffs. “Everyone remembers Loony.”

Ginny’s brown eyes roll. “Ex-girlfriend, now, I mean. She sort of… misunderstood the boundaries of our relationship. She’s polyamorous, you see. And apparently, she’d been seeing this Polish witch on the side, who she’d met at her — her illicit crystal shop, and decided it was time to introduce me to her. She’d known of me for months, of course, this Roksana, but her I didn’t have the pleasure of knowing _or_ meeting until three days ago.” She smiles faintly. “Maybe I never made it clear enough that I’d thought we were exclusive.”

There’s are several reasons that Pansy and Draco are friends. One of the many is their mutual flair for the dramatic. And while Ginny’s expression hardly relays her heartbreak, Pansy’s eyes are wide, her brows scrunched, her jaw dropped agape. “Who knew Loony could be such a bitch?” she wheezes.

A smirk pulls at Ginny’s lips. “Luna wouldn’t hurt a fly. She’s just got too much love in her heart. There’s a lot of room in her heart, really, for both love _and_ the tendency to miscommunicate.” Pansy just shakes her head at this. “You know what’s even more brilliant? Roksana — she’s self-studying astronomy — has been counting and cataloguing all of the stars in the sky for the past five years for her personal records. She’s at about twenty-thousand or so now, I believe.”

Pansy turns toward her pint, which has gone warm. She hears the crunch of Ginny popping another crisp into her mouth. “I don’t mean this as an insult to you, babe, but I think Loony may have found her match.” She chuckles dryly. “Does that bitch not know it’d take her thousands of years to count the bloody fucking stars?”

That draws a laugh out of the She-Weasel. Pansy crosses her legs. Right then, she’s too glad she’d worn the white tennis skirt that she did. When Ginny says nothing, Pansy pushes her beer away and turns on her stool to face her.

“What did you think of the match, then? I’d like a subjective, play-by-play review, please, from the Chaser on the Holyhead Harpies.”

Ginny licks her lips as she wipes her fingers off on a napkin, smiles with one side of her mouth. “You’ve got some arm is what I’d say first and foremost.”

Pansy arches a brow, sits up straighter, smiles catlike. “Good enough to make your team?”

Ginny grins. “Hell no. American baseball, maybe. But Quidditch? Never. Your form needs work, and you’d be benched for the entire season if you ‘accidentally’ attacked your opponents the way you do. No — that’s a lie. You’d be kicked off, and I haven’t even drafted you yet.”

Pansy’s tongue presses to the inside of her cheek as she stares Ginny down for several, long seconds. Then, “Fair point.” She folds her arms over her chest. “But Christ on a stick, you don’t have to be so rude about it.”

Ginny chokes on her sip of beer. “What did you just say?”

“Christ on a — never mind. I saw it on some American television show.” Pansy presses her palm to her heart, momentarily aghast. Clem is rubbing off on her and they’ve only been partners for a day.

Ginny looks away, tips her beer back to drain the rest of it. Pansy watches the drops at the very bottom of the glass succumb to gravity at the hands of _woman_ — woman in her heavenliest form, with rounded deltoids and a visible navel piercing and a loose, ginger ponytail. She licks her lips unconsciously. As Ginny sets down the glass, she exhales heavily and fixes Pansy with a _look_.

“Wanna go snog in the restroom?”

“So men don’t perv on us out here?”

“Sure, let’s go with that.” Ginny freezes for a moment, pointing a hesitant finger in Pansy’s face. “But first… please don’t ever mention to me what you’ve done with my brother.”

Pansy doesn’t bat an eye. “Who?”

“Yeah. Nicely done.” 

*** 

Harry slips into the C-shaped booth beside Ron. The Handmaiden is too old-timey to accommodate an actual dance floor with neon lights, but there’s music playing and the lights are dim, and apparently that’s enough to have Malfoy, Pansy, and Ginny, in that order, grinding on one another like a strangely hot Pansy sandwich. Harry doesn’t say a word at first, rubs his sweaty palms off on his jeans — he thinks having a hot shower after his handjob got exactly nothing out of his system — and very, very blatantly watches Malfoy’s arse gyrate against Pansy’s hips. It’s so distracting that it only strikes him several moments later that Ginny is the odd one out in such company and since nobody else is staring, he must be late on several accounts.

Ron only notices Harry when he unearths himself from beneath several layers of Hermione’s hair — he’d been mumbling something into her hair, which had led him down to her neck, and that was already more PDA that Hermione would usually allow, but something about the flush high on her cheeks tells Harry that she’d been convinced out of being the Designated Apparator for this evening.

“Harry!” Ron breathes. He blinks in surprise and knocks the wind out of Harry with a boom-clap to his upper back. “When’d you get here?” He’s panting, almost. Harry imagines that dwelling under Hermione’s hair would be about as difficult as trying to give head under a blanket, slowly depleting all of the oxygen underneath.

“Just — just now.” Harry can’t help his smirk. Hermione may have sworn to dissect the topic of Draco Malfoy with him, but by her ruffled look and desperate attempts to tuck her hair behind her ears and straighten her cardigan, now isn’t the time.

“Yeah?” Ron asks, voice an octave higher than usual. His hand shifts on Hermione’s thigh. “Well, I — you took a while, mate, so I drank _for_ you, and now I’m. Well.” His loose smile explains it well enough. “Team already took shots together, so. Guess you have some catchin’ up to do.”

“You played well, Harry,” Hermione states, matter-of-fact as ever, but hardly stifling a giggle when Ron appears shocked by her tone. “Congratulations. But, if you’ll excuse us — come _on_ , Ron.”

“Right.” Ron grins. “‘Mione thinks she can beat me at darts, but the only way she’ll let me play her is if I school _Creasey_ first, which, psh. I could do it in my sleep. But I’ve gotta get over there before he plays target practice and pins some rich, Muggle lady to the wall and the owner kicks ‘im out. So.” Harry receives a pointed look, and he thinks only belatedly to scoot out of Ron and Hermione’s way.

“Ron’s a worthy opponent, Hermione,” Harry warns as he slides back down onto the bench. He raises his brows at her. “I wouldn’t underestimate him.”

She’s hugging Ron’s arm like it’s a crutch holding her up. He imagines she’s had a beer, maybe less, but that’s perfectly enough. “Oh, come on, Harry. Have some faith. All I see is a matter of physics — if I can nail the right trajectory, speed, and steadiness, and I’ll have my touchdown.”

“Bull’s eye,” Ron corrects with humorous disbelief. “What’s fizix? Is that what the builder cartoon bloke says?”

“Bob the Builder says ‘fix it,’ Ronald.” They wander off in Clem’s direction.

Harry shakes his head slowly. He takes stock of the empty glasses cluttering the table and supposes it’s his turn for a drink. Before he stands to head for the bar, though, he watches in silence as Pansy passes Ginny a pint and Draco some sort of cocktail with a colorful sprig of fruit peel that Harry didn’t even know the Handmaiden offered. Ginny’s hand brushes across Pansy’s waist in a gesture Harry reads as _thank you_ , and _what?_

“My son seems to have been much beguiled by you, Mr. Potter, during the short time I was away.”

Harry’s blood runs cold and his fingers curl into a fist against the tacky surface of the table. Narcissa Malfoy eases into a spot directly opposite him in the booth. Harry practically swallows his tongue out of fright. At first, he’s unable to come up with a sound reason for feeling afraid of Narcissa — he’s an Auror, a law enforcement official, for Merlin’s sake, and he’s a grown man, and of all of the Malfoys, Narcissa, though indirectly, has been the kindest to him when observing the historical aggregate of the Malfoys’ anti-Harry agenda. When she looks at him, though, it’s hardly _at_ , because her eerily light, blue eyes pierce into him, scrutinize, evaluate, and judge without so much as a narrowed eye or lift of an eyebrow. She’s very much still, as if the prominent cheekbones Draco inherited were chiseled into her face out of diamond. Her red-painted lips curl in a saccharine but distant smile.

“Well, isn’t this a humble establishment? A bit dodgier than the Hog’s Head, but still nearly too jolly for its own good. Do Muggles always celebrate on Monday evenings?” Her eyes scan the room, but Harry doesn’t think she looks at anyone or anything in particular aside from her temporary pause on Draco.

He feels an urge to speak, though he has no thoughts to vocalize. “Good to see you, Mrs. Malfoy,” is all he murmurs. He pokes at an empty pint glass that’s very obviously not his own.

“Narcissa, please.”

At this, Harry hesitates. But he nods his head with a single dip of his chin. “Right. Sorry. I… I heard that your hearing went well.” He folds his arms tightly over his chest, as if there’s a chill in the air that no one else in the pub can feel but him. “Congratulations.”

“Did Draco inform you?” At Harry’s nod, she sits up straighter. “I made it by the skin of my teeth, Mr. Potter. I appreciate it, but it’s no occasion to congratulate.”

Harry’s teeth dig into his lower lip. He tries, “Please, call me Harry.”

Narcissa’s smile is tight. “I’d rather not, Mr. Potter.” Oh.

Harry’s lips tighten into a firm line and he doesn’t speak. His eyes dart to that glass he’d been prodding at, turning it in a condensation-ringed circle by its thick handle.

“My case was a myriad of loopholes woven together. Past success stories of freed accomplices, the spouses or family of Death Eaters. My husband’s death. Hermione Granger’s indelible threat to publish an exposé on the heinous conditions inside of Azkaban. I firmly believe she will follow through with it in the end, but for now, she’s much of the reason I’m here and not there. And in a desperate quest to remedy their faulty security, my knowledge of the prison and the Homonculous Charm are seen as better allied with the reformers than the to-be-reformed. I think it amusing, Mr. Potter, the way debts come full circle. You saved my boy, I saved you, the unorthodox and illicit magical knowledge of your father and my rogue cousin both got me into trouble and saved me. There is, of couse, also the… the fact that Draco is of adequate financial stability to pay for my bail.” Narcissa’s voice is hollow.

“You don’t need to worry about him,” Harry says quickly. “About upsetting him, I mean. I know he loves to live in excess and come off as living in excess, but I think he’d trade that in a heartbeat to have you back. And he did. And I think he’s happy with that decision.” He’s not sure if he’s spoken out of turn or too intensely, so he clears his throat, grounds himself with fingers twisted around that empty, cold glass. He needs a drink, by god.

Narcissa does not acknowledge this. Not verbally, at least, and Harry fails to see it if she does something other than look through him with her bone-chilling eyes. “He’s quite taken with you, I seem to understand,” she says, lacing her fingers together against the edge of the table.

“He’s — I was his protection, Auror protection, for a while. That’s why he —“

“Lived at your residence, yes. I know. The old Black family home.” Her lips twist upward. “I’m quite familiar.”

Harry coughs, wonders if he should be bracing himself for that cliché talk usually given by the big brother of the girl to which some dickhead schmuck is trying to cozy up. In this scenario, Harry is undoubtedly the dickhead schmuck. _Break his heart and I’ll break you_ , and all of that.

“First, Mr. Potter, I must thank you.” It’s odd — Harry can hardly ever hear Ron yell over the clamor of a pub, but the words of Narcissa Malfoy, he holds onto each and every syllable. She speaks with razor-sharp clarity despite the softly patronizing tone of her voice. Even if Harry didn’t want to hear her, he would absolutely hear her. “Thank you for watching over Draco.” When she pauses in her speech, it’s not to nervously fidget or lick her lips, but just to assess Harry for the umpteenth time. “He’s a smart young man, but he feels. He _feels_ so much.” To Harry’s shock, she smiles faintly. “And that can be hard for him.” The pause that follows is longer, so it’s clear she leaves it at that.

Harry rubs the side of his hand across his nervously sweaty upper lip. “I, er. Of course. It was my job, but. You’re — welcome?”

Narcissa sighs. Harry wonders fleetingly if any of the words are actually registered by her, or if it’s just the Malfoy trademark I’m-going-to-speak-and-you’re-going-to-listen sort of conversation they’re having. Into the stretching quietness between them and the hubbub of the pub around them, though, she asks him a question.

“You must remember Blaise Zabini from Hogwarts, no?” At Harry’s nod, she nods, too. “I assume that you’ve become… acquainted with him, should I say, in the recent weeks.”

Shit. Shit, shit, a really damn big _shit_. Harry’s eyebrows twitch in all the compass directions before they pinch at the middle, his lips parted but wordless. “You could say that, yes.”

Narcissa eyes him, her inflexible posture only bent by the vague tilt of her head to one side. Harry tries to keep his squirming to a minimum, but he has that impending-doom-feeling in his gut that she’s going to cast a _Legilimens_ on him at any second. _What’s the best way to escape an uncomfortable situation?_ Harry panics. _Wizard-Google, how does one please the iron maiden that is Draco Malfoy’s mother, closing in on him with the impaling spikes of her hard stares and intent-filled words?_

Flattery. It must be. Flattery is the answer to everything.

“But you’re — Blaise is — Blaise is very much in Draco’s past, Na-Narcissa.” It feels wrong on Harry’s lips. He’d rather not call her anything at all. “Draco, he — you should’ve seen the wedding. He handled it all with this bloody amazing grace. And he’s — he hasn’t seen Blaise, at least to my knowledge, since then. And that’s a good thing, isn’t it?”

“Mr. Potter,” Narcissa murmurs, but Harry doesn’t stop.

“He’s been on honeymoon, I’ll admit, but he hasn’t — I don’t think he’s truly needed him or felt for him the way you may think he still does in a long while. Since — even before he moved in with me. Draco is — he’s wondrous, I really think he is, but he’s also proud, and when someone breaks your heart like that and you’re _that_ proud, as proud as Draco is, I don’t think every single ounce of you loves that someone and needs them the way you did even just before you found out. And I think he’s just been heeling, and, well, to be honest, he’s doing great! I think he’s doing great! He seems _happy_ , and he’s coming to terms with — with stuff, and you’re back, and I just really think it’s all coming together for him. And, hell, I think you’re going to do the same, Narcissa. Come to terms with everything. I’m — don’t get me wrong, I’m totally sorry for your loss, but that doesn’t mean you can’t turn shit around, am I right? And when your son is happy, I’m sure you’re happy, because when your son _wasn’t_ happy, you were _worried_ for him, for his mental state, for his futile _crush_ on that _heartless_ bloke, and I’d venture to say that you’re already happier than you were then. To — to start with, for one, you look like you’ve aged backwards since that time with the gardening and the trowel and the lemonade —“ Harry’s jaw clamps shut. His temples feel fizzy, like the bloody is rushing underneath the skin there at hyperspeed. He takes off his glasses, tries to clean them for no real reason with the hem of his shirt. They’re not dirty.

“Draco… He told you all of this?” asks Narcissa. Harry opens his mouth to respond during her hesitation, but her voice rings out first. “He must trust you very much.”

Harry can’t lie. “No, no, Draco would — he’d never.”

Narcissa doesn’t look confused — Harry doesn’t think it’s in her register of publicly-displayed emotions to appear baffled. “Was it Blaise, then?” Her voice takes on a slightly bitter tone on Zabini’s name.

“No,” Harry murmurs distractedly. He turns his head slightly to watch Malfoy pluck a maraschino cherry from Pansy’s cocktail. _This is not the time_ , he thinks to himself, as Malfoy’s tongue curls around the little, artificially-red globe. Narcissa accommodates his lapse in mental presence with silence of her own. Then,

“Did Pansy Parkinson tell you all of this? I didn’t… I don’t believe she would do that.” Narcissa’s shoulders hike up, just an inch, but she doesn’t look any less poised. “Draco has a propensity for aligning himself with individuals of poor influence, but Pansy has been loyal to him for a long time —“

Harry feels bile rise up at the back of his throat.

“It wasn’t Pansy. It…” He’s growing gradually more aware that his reticence is driving Narcissa closer and closer to the edge of anxiety, but he cannot bear to spill to Draco’s mother what not even Draco himself knows.

Looking back on the three minutes before he’d opened his mouth, Harry thinks he’s realizing far too late that what he’d thought was Narcissa Malfoy attacking him, a mother bear defending her cub son, was just default Narcissa Malfoy. He replaces his glasses on his nose. What he sees before him is a woman whose face kicks him back in time five years to a time of stress, horror, and darkness, her skin stretched tight across her bony features, her forehead revealing the lines of weathering and age when furrowed in such a manner, her eyes mistrustful.

“Mr. Potter, I really do not understand where you’re heading —“

“Fuck,” Harry mutters.

“Excuse me?”

“No, er. Sorry. Excuse _me_.” Harry rises, palms against the table to hoist himself up, and there’s a cacophonous clinking of glass as the empty pint glasses collide against one another and he weaves between molasses-moving, hazy-eyed drunk Muggles and wizards alike on his way to the bar.

“Hi, Harry,” Ginny says with a cheer that jars him for a second.

“Hey, Gin,” he says, though his eyes are focused on Malfoy, only to find him knowingly looking between Pansy and Ginny. Harry would be curious, but at the moment, he can barely afford to care. Pansy, who stands about an inch from Ginny on one side and the bar on the other, is the only one to instantly notice the tension in Harry’s shoulders.

“What is it, Potter?” she says into her glass, which makes her voice sound distant and metallic.

“Malfoy,” Harry starts without preamble, “can we go somewhere?”

In reply, Malfoy’s brows raise and he spits a bit of his cocktail back into the glass. On accident, Harry assumes. Ginny lets out a peal of laughter, perhaps at Malfoy, but likely at the urgency of Harry’s tone. Pansy’s eyes narrow, because she’s the only one of the three who doesn’t read into Harry’s words the way one might so easily.

“Not very subtle, Potter.” Malfoy dabs at the corners of his mouth with a napkin, hops off of his stool onto long legs. Malfoy stands taller when he’s off the stool than when he’s on. “But as the Muggles say, when nature calls —“

“That’s not — no, that’s not what that means, Malfoy. And I _also_ don’t mean _that_ —,“ Harry eyes Ginny with a harmless glare, “— but I do need to talk to you.”

Pansy nudges Draco by the elbow. “Go,” she urges quietly. When her eyes move to Harry, though, her white teeth scrape across her lower lip, her eyes blank. Harry swears internally.

“Alright, alright.” Malfoy scrunches up his nose as he throws back the last few drops of his cocktail and then — apparently unashamed — takes Harry’s elbow. “You two freaky rabbits be safe.” Harry’s being dragged toward the front doors of the Handmaiden before he can even decide to guide Malfoy. “Mother! Mother!” Malfoy calls for all patrons to hear. “Expect me home a tad later tonight! Ask Granger to take you someplace you can Apparate!”

“Draco,” Harry hisses, but it’s rather out of turn for him to scold. Only Narcissa’s bewildered eyes betray her as they track the duo’s path out of the pub. Harry nearly believes that her eyes have burnt holes into the back of his shirt, but it’s just the cool, evening air that breezes against his skin once they make it outside. Malfoy lets go of his arm, reaches up to unfasten two of the very top buttons on his shirt. He doesn’t even question Harry’s pressing desire to leave. He proceeds to wander down the sidewalk — perhaps a little past buzzed — as if he has any idea where he’s headed.

“It’s nice out here,” Malfoy mumbles, spreading his arms to his sides. “The air is — it smells like tobacco and toxic waste, but I can appreciate the overpopulated, concrete mecca that is London for what it is.” Harry rolls his eyes and follows because he has to follow, but Malfoy’s legs are endless and he remains a step behind him even at his meandering pace.

“Malfoy,” Harry sighs. A few Muggles are out on the streets — smoking by the entrance to the pub, walking hand in hand, hurrying to cabs — but even so, when Harry grapples for Malfoy’s wrist to Side-Along him to Grimmauld Place, Malfoy retaliates with an equally firm grip, stumbling backward against the brick of the closest building and drawing Harry in toward him. Someone whistles in passing, and Harry spares a glance over his shoulder, spares a _glare_ , really, because _not helping_ , but Malfoy laughs softly, and Harry barely gets to turn his head before he’s being kissed, which is _really not helping_. Malfoy unhands him to curl the fingers of both hands right over the belted waistband of Harry’s jeans, and he sighs out his nose, warm and relaxed against Harry’s cheek. Malfoy’s eyes flutter open a full second after he draws back and licks his lips.

“You were saying, Potter?” _Or were you?_ his eyes seem to say. Malfoy’s head cocks to the side, and in the shitty street lamplight, his gray eyes are nearly black, his hair is moon-white, and his upper lip glistens with the lightest sheen of sweat, sweat that Harry could taste on his own mouth if he licked his lips. He’s breathtaking, and he’s literally got Harry by his trousers. Harry does nothing but fight his inner battle in vain — morality over desire. _Morality over desire_.

“I was. But not here,” Harry says. He tries to look and sound serious, but he feels like a child who’s just cut a piece of his own hair off. Or Dudley’s. His arms droop uselessly by his sides. He feels even more useless when he realizes that cutting off a lock of Dudley’s hair and enduring the wrath of Uncle Vernon seems minuscule next to Malfoy and his habitual smirk, the one he’s committed to memory from so many occasions in real life and a couple from memory.

“Why not?” Malfoy demands fractiously. His fingers dig in lower and Harry tries to suck in his stomach.

“Because — there are people around. And it’s dirty.” Let reason be his guide.

Malfoy exhales a laughing breath. “Cute,” he mutters, and Harry can’t believe his ears until Malfoy’s drawn him closer by the jeans and he’s got his nose nudging into the corner of Harry’s jaw, dragging upward until it’s tucked behind his ear. He breathes Harry in. “But you’re clean, aren’t you? You cleaned up after I left you? That’s enough for me. Like I said… good mood.” His tongue and lips touch Harry’s neck in tandem, dizzying enough to wrench a trembling non-word from Harry’s lips. But —

“No,” Harry practically whines, but at a manly octave, obviously, pressing Malfoy away with two palms against his chest. Malfoy isn’t displeased, exactly, because he’s got his back to the brick wall, holding up his wrists to it as if he’s pinned back by invisible chains.

“No, as in you _didn’t_ shower? Sally Slytherin, Potter, do you listen to a word I —“

“You listen to me,” Harry orders, voice so gruff it takes even him by surprise. Malfoy’s not shocked, buta deep line forms between his brows, and one of his hands moves to gesture something in a way that foreshadows that he’s about to launch into a reprimand, to talk wildly with both flapping mouth and hands, but Harry shakes his head. They’re in the street — fine — Malfoy’s a bit drunk — not as fine — and Harry’s had this on his chest for months— really, really not fine — but he still says, “Just — just listen. Please.”

Malfoy doesn’t pout exactly, but his lips do go all crinkled as he tightens them obstinately. He folds his arms over his chest which nudges Harry’s hands out of place.

“Look, Malfoy…” Harry peers both ways down the sidewalk, takes Malfoy by his upper arm, and ushers him into the alcove of an apartment building’s doorway, shielded from the street by a deep green awning and some potted topiaries. Malfoy acquiesces to the manhandling, but once he’s leaned against the wall again, he doesn’t meet Harry’s eyes.

Fuck. Where to start?

“So, I… You know how all of this started.” Harry leans into his hip, places his right hand against it as his left gestures ambiguously between the two of them. “Your father’s breakout, you as a suspect. You needed your name cleared, and your alibi relied on Zabini’s testimonial that you were with him the night of the breakout. Zabini agreed, of course, to be questioned. You know that. He — he got you off the hook.” Harry seeks out confirmation in Malfoy’s eyes, but there’s nothing. Malfoy examines his own cuticles, chews on the inside of his lip. “Malfoy, _ple_ —“

“Do go on, Potter,” Draco answers dryly.

Harry’s brows lift fleetingly. “Right. Er. Creasey and I, we questioned Zabini. I’m not sure if you — well, I suppose you do now, after working there — that the MLE, investigative and magical forensics and all — accept un-tampered memories as hard evidence. I was — Zabini chose me as his confidential Memory Trustee. I signed the contract. He gave us — he gave _me_ his memory of March twenty-first, the night you spent at Zabini’s flat. And… then some.”

Malfoy’s eyes flicker up to Harry’s face. His tongue darts between his lips, wetting them. “What does that mean? _‘And then some’_?”

Harry takes half a step back, and by now, both hands are resting against his hips, digging into his own flesh inches from where Malfoy’s greedy fingers had been minutes before. He sighs deeply, lets his vision blur over the rim of his glasses so all he sees is the black of Malfoy’s shirt. “He gave me several memories. Memories I was obligated by law to watch and catalogue, even if they ended up being completely extraneous to the case — I _had_ to, you’ve got to understand that, Draco, I had to look at them, and I couldn’t say a word, I was under contract —“

“Shut up,” Malfoy says quickly. He’s no longer slouching against the wall, and he’s got a hand close to Harry’s face — all his fingertips pinched together as if he’s just conducted Harry to come to a halt in his melody. “What did you see?”

Harry looks at the street, grinds his teeth. “March twenty-first. Then there was — you and Blaise were arguing; it was night. Summer, I think. Another where you were gardening. You saved Iggy from some poisonous plant. Others where you were… intimate. With Blaise. And then his and Paloma’s engagement dinner.”

Malfoy’s eyes don’t leave him once while he speaks — Harry knows this the instant he glances at him, finds him already looking. A veiny, sickly kind of heat has crept into his pale cheeks and he hugs himself tight. Harry imagines their brains are playing out precisely the same, masochistic loop of those Pensieve moments on repeat. Harry feels empty. He’s not sure about Malfoy.

“You don’t know how sorry I am,” Harry murmurs, voice crackly. “I’ve been meaning to tell you since my contract dissolved when your mum returned —“

Malfoy spins in place and disappears from sight with a crack that echoes in the night. Harry knows where he’s gone, no doubt about it, but he has to stay behind for an extra thirty seconds to Obliviate a pair of Muggles exiting the building just in time to see Draco twist into the void of Apparition.

*** 

“That bastard and his fucking enchantments — who uses Anti-Apparition charms anymore aside from the old geezers about to keel over and die who still believe _evil_ is afoot? What, does he think he’s protecting himself? From fucking _what_? The only thing he needs to protect himself from his me, when I hex off his fingers, toes, and balls one by one.”

Harry’s panting. That’s how he finds Draco, on the the seventh floor of Blaise and Paloma’s building, banging on their door with a hard, bony fist. He casts a discreet silencing charm — just in case of neighbors — and wipes the sweat from his forehead. He’d run up several flights of stairs; certainly not the most efficient, but he’s not sure he can handle logic right now.

“Malfoy,” Harry says slowly, stepping toward him, and that’s when he notes that Draco’s other hand is occupied clutching his shoulder. His fingers are soaked in blood. It’s hard to see against the black material of his shirt, but when Harry does, he blanches. “Fuck — stop knocking. You got splinched. Hold still, let me —“

The glare that Malfoy directs his way is fiery. “You think I haven’t noticed? That’s of secondary importance, Potter,” he exclaims.

The door creaks open. Paloma, looking sleepy and fuzzy wrapped in a fluffy dressing gown, tucks a lock of blonde hair behind her ear.

“Draco?” she asks softly. “Oh, wow, I — Harry? _Oh_ , Draco, are you hurt?”

“Move,” mutters Draco, plowing through the door and into the flat. Harry isn’t necessarily apologetic as he squeezes past Paloma, because Malfoy’s cradling his arm like a wounded soldier does as he stomps into the Zabinis’ living room, where Blaise is sprawled out across the couch and staring at a Muggle television. He’s upright, though, the moment the loud stomps of the hard leather of Draco’s shoes get close enough.

“Whoa, whoa, Dray,” Blaise begins, because the blood is a rivulet all the way down Draco’s arm now, drip-dripping from his middle finger to the hardwood floor.

Harry tries to cast some sort of healing spell but Draco continues to evade him as a target.

“You massive steaming shitpile,” Draco grits out.

Blaise gets onto his feet. “Easy with the blood, Dray, it’s hard to clean —“

Harry can’t help but stare incredulously at Zabini, then cringe when Tank rolls out of her bed to plod over to lick Draco’s blood from the floor. Behind him, he hears Paloma close the door slowly, mumble shrilly to herself.

“I won’t bother asking questions. I just want an explanation. Please. Before I decapitate you.” Malfoy’s uninjured arm is unsteady, but still he points his wand at Blaise’s throat, pressed in hard enough that it appears painful when he swallows.

Blaise’s arms are lifted in surrender. His tongue runs over his plush lips, and he just breathes for several, heavy seconds, gazing at Draco first, then Harry.

“There are things, Blaise, that are meant to be kept between two people. Things I want to forget. Those things — they’re precious for a reason. They’re precious because they’re terrible, because they hurt and yet I love them for Merlin knows what reason. They’re the last thing I want others to think of when they see me.” Draco’s voice is hard but not even. It shakes with his arm. Harry tiptoes closer, just to a safe distance from which he can heal Draco’s arm, something that will hold the gashes in his skin shut just for the time being. His eyes move back to Draco’s profile when he speaks again. “Don’t you understand?”

Blaise lowers his arms. His countenance remains collected, even if pushing on Draco’s wand to urge it away only gets him a jab in the Adam’s apple that forces a choked cough from him.

“Relax, Dray. You’re being dramatic.” Blaise’s lips pull faintly at the corners. “What’s new?”

Draco frowns deeply, sickened and silent.

“It worked, though, didn’t it?” Blaise continues.

Draco isn’t having it. “What are you talking about?” he whispers, and his words slur together. They’re both tall, nearly eye to eye, so it’s no struggle for Draco to lift his wand to dig its tip into the center of Blaise’s forehead.

Blaise’s eyes flash toward Harry and he smirks. “Got Potter’s attention,” he murmurs easily. Harry stares Zabini down, but from the corner of his eye he sees Draco falter and look his way, too, if only for a moment.

“Is this funny to you?” Draco entreats as he steps closer to Blaise. He moves his wand to dig into his sternum, just over his heart. Harry can hear in his voice that he’s flustered. He feels, just as he did watching Blaise’s memories, like a powerless bystander — none of this is his business, but he’s been thrust into its midst nevertheless. “Do you think that —“ Draco cuts himself off, and as if recalling both Harry and Paloma’s presences, his eyes roam Blaise’s face in silence until he can churn out the words he needs, albeit lower. “I bet you think you’re clever. I really, really bet you think you’re clever, that you’re some brilliant mastermind matchmaker, that it’s simply _grand_ that you think you’ve put so much effort and heart into manipulating me and those around me, as if you hadn’t fucked me over enough.” Draco sucks in a breath, and Harry swears he sees Blaise’s facade flicker.

“It was for your own good,” Paloma says, voice blanket-soft as she traipses past Harry toward the pair. Standing beside the two of them, she looks almost like a child. “He just wanted you to be happy, Draco. You would never be happy with Blaise. He’s with me and will always be.”

Draco gazes down his nose at Paloma. “She knew about this?” he mutters to Blaise.

“Yes,” Paloma affirms, settling her plush arms across her chest.

“About everything?” Draco swallows. “About the memories you gave to Potter? About us?”

“Everything. She’s my wife, Dray,” Blaise offers. His large, dark hand sprawls across the space between her shoulder blades. “I can’t lie to her.”

Draco’s upper lip twitches into a sneer. “Like you could lie to me?”

Blaise retaliates fast. “That’s different. Lies of omission —“

“Oh, please.”

Blaise scoffs. “You should be grateful. I practically _gave_ Potter to you, Dray. Can’t you see that I did it because I care about you? It’s just a few memories. You said yourself that you wanted to forget them. Why do that when something good can come of them?”

Draco smiles bitterly and lowers his wand. He doesn’t say anything, but Harry sees his Adam’s apple bob with the weight of restrained words, which is unusual for Malfoy. So he jumps in himself.

“You know what, Zabini?” Harry steps forward from the background, his own wand in his hand at his side. He doesn’t need it, per se, but a wand is a visible, tangible threat, even if he’s just as powerful without it. “You’re proud because you _gave_ me to Draco. Yeah, alright. I don’t even know what that means. Every decision that I’ve made, I would’ve made with or without your meddling.” He just breathes heavily for a bout, then shakes his head. “I happen to think you’re so defensive about all of this because your little game is finally over, you’ve been found out, and now you’ve got to let go of Draco, which is the worst part of all. You’re scared of your feelings, but I hope you live the rest of your life with them.”

Paloma’s face is paper-white. Zabini hugs her to his side, and that time, when he pushes Draco’s wand away from his chest, it gives. Draco withdraws it with eyes narrowed.

“Harry Potter,” Paloma says, voice aquiver. “You don’t mean that. You wouldn’t say that.”

Harry only has it in him to frown thoughtfully. “See, I’m pretty damn sure I do.” Paloma looks horrified and curls into her husband’s side.

Blaise turns a blind eye to Harry and Paloma’s interaction, apparently. He snorts, gazes imploringly at Draco. “How long have we been friends for, Dray?” he says, almost affectionate. “Don’t be like this. I know you can forgive me and be happy about what you’ve got.”

Draco clears his throat and it’s rough, even though he’s only been quiet a short while. “What I’ve got?” He moves closer to Blaise — ‘kissing-range’ is the way to describe it that comes directly to Harry’s mind — and he sighs softly. “Now that you mention it, I _am_ glad for what I’ve got, what you’ve given me. I’ve wanted to do this for quite some time, so. Thank you.” Draco pauses to smile. Blaise’s chest heaves noticeably, the amusement having abandoned his features. Paloma’s eyes are wide and disturbed, and Harry anticipates that at any moment she’ll shove Draco away from _her man_. She doesn’t have to worry that Blaise will stray from her, though, because then Draco knees him right in the balls and Blaise chokes in distress, all fifteen stone of him suddenly off his legs and supported only by her tiny body.

Harry works hard to look unfazed. The fist he presses against his mouth isn’t very effective.

“Right,” Draco murmurs, retreating several steps backward. His tipsy state is evident in the way he wobbles slightly. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to pop on over to St. Mungo’s before my arm falls off, or worse, I get lasting scars that will uproot my shoulders’ annual maximum two-day exposure to the sun’s dangerous rays during the summer on the off chance that I’m feeling alluring enough to be half-naked. We wouldn’t want that. May I borrow your Floo powder? Thank you. Good evening, Zabinis.” Harry watches the group go separate ways — Paloma guides Blaise, still hissing with pain, into an armchair, and Malfoy strides toward the fireplace. Harry follows the latter.

Malfoy makes eye contact with Harry as he moves to stand in the fireplace. His gaze is indecipherable, and with Malfoy, Harry guesses that’s slightly better than _in the mood to produce more Potter Stinks badges_ , but significantly worse than _I’ll happily kiss you on the London streets in front of passing Muggles._

“St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries,” says Malfoy, stuttering briefly but still with better enunciation than Harry’s ever spoken, and he looks down to his feet, away from Harry’s eyes, as he tosses down the powder and dematerializes.

Harry rubs at his eyes. His bones and muscles ache nearly as much as his head does. Behind him in the living room, Blaise whispers to Paloma about sleeping on the couch, about his bruised nuts, so Harry escapes in a flurry of green flame.


	19. Chapter 19

Harry Floos into the buzzing reception of St. Mungo’s. It’s as much a sensory overload as it always is — a young girl waits in a nearby chair with feet for hands, beside her a man about Harry’s age belches out pungent, green smoke. He can feel a few heads begin to turn his way, but it’s nothing new. Seemingly out of nowhere, though, Draco appears to grab at Harry’s hand with his injured arm, as his other hand is occupied with clutching at his now freely bleeding shoulder wound.

“For once I’m thankful for your stalking my every step. Come on, Potter, I need your scarface,” Malfoy sputters, and Harry might have snorted had Malfoy’s face not been wan and tinged a light green, his knees wobbling beneath him as he totes Harry to the reception desk.

“Malfoy, god, are you —?” Harry hisses, touching his waist with his other hand out of concern. Malfoy blatantly ignores his caring instincts, likely because he’s already too busy griping at the doe-eyed receptionist. Blood seeps from Malfoy’s splinch wound and through his shirt, and it's stained the palm of his compressing hand just about the color of his wine-red trousers.

“See? I told you.” Draco’s flapping hand is close to poking out Harry’s eye and dislodging his glasses when he tries to reveal Harry’s scar beneath his fringe, as if Harry’s very face wouldn’t be solid enough proof. His fingers, dry and warm, are a welcome touch, and Harry almost sighs aloud when they fall away. “I told you that I’m Harry bloody Potter’s _special friend_ , and that Mr. Potter would be furious if you didn’t get me in there soon. Wouldn’t you be, Potter?” Draco’s gray, expectant eyes turn on him, and Harry blinks, as does the receptionist, who hasn’t said a word yet but is watching him with a distant fascination as she twirls a quill between her fingers.

Harry coughs. “You — you know he’s bleeding, right? Splinch wound?” Malfoy’s still holding his hand, Harry realizes with a belated smile that doesn’t quite befit the circumstances but plays out on his face nonetheless. He uses that grip to twist Malfoy around for the receptionist to see, at which point her eyes widen and she sits up straighter in her chair.

“I — oh, Mr. Potter, I so deeply apologize. I really thought — he’s clearly a bit inebriated, and when he started to mention your name, I thought — and he didn’t say anything about the open wound. I apologize,” the receptionist breathes, cheeks crimson. Harry suppresses the urge to laugh at the fact that she’s mistaken Malfoy for a drunkard.

“Must’ve slipped my mind,” Draco hums somewhere between her choppy, panicked thoughts.

The receptionist casts a harried Patronus over her shoulder and then smiles, a bit forced, at Harry. “Just straight down that hall, Mr. Potter. Bed seven. Healer Longbottom will be with you very soon.”

Draco’s snort is loud. “ _Longbottom_? You _must_ be shitting me.”

“Malfoy, there are children around.” Harry allows Draco to compress his own wound, and though it means separating their hands, he hustles Draco’s body around like he’s a child, hands on his narrow waist from behind to guide him toward the hall. “Thank you,” he mutters to the receptionist in passing, flashing her a sympathetic smile. She returns it with a starry look in her eyes.

“Fuck,” says Draco under his breath, just barely loud enough over the fading tumult of reception. “It hurts, Potter.”

“I know, I know.” Harry swerves them both to the side of the hallway to make room for a witch levitating an unconscious child past.

The emergency care ward is seemingly endless to the eye. Luckily, bed seven isn’t far, and Harry helps Malfoy settle down onto the clean, white sheets, mere feet separating him from a sleeping old woman one on side and a teenager on the other — who gawks at Harry without shame — precisely as Neville Longbottom arrives. Harry wonders for a moment why Draco scrambles away from the foot of the bed like there’s snakes snapping at his toes, but it isn’t long until:

“Alright, Malfoy, let’s get you looked at — _Harry_! Mate! Haven’t seen you in _ages_!” Neville booms, grinning and reaching out to give Harry’s shoulder a hearty shake. The lime green of the Healer robes is unusually fitting for him, and Harry can’t help but smile pleasantly despite knowing that Draco must despise him for it in the moment.

“Hey, Nev —“

“Yes, yes, adorable. Can we save our joyous Gryffindorian reunion for a more opportune time when my arm isn’t dangling from the rest of my body by just my epidermis?” Malfoy intrudes. He glares between them. Harry touches Malfoy’s knee on the bed, which Neville most definitely notices, but aside from a cursory glance and a lift of his brows, does not comment on.

Instead, he gives a good-natured chuckle. “Surely can’t be that bad, Malfoy. Would’ve fallen off by now.” He draws his wand from the deep pockets of his green robes as he shuffles to the other side of Malfoy’s bed, “And, what’s more, the lovely Darla at reception has informed me that you’re under the influence, which is as much fantastic news as it is an opportunity to employ my new _favorite_ experimental therapy!”

The closer that Neville leans in with his wand, the further Malfoy inclines back and sinks into the pillow behind him, eyes positively bugging out of his head. “ _Experimental therapy_? Are you _mad_ , Longbottom? Just fix my bloody arm!” He cranes his head as if to look past Neville. “Can I have another Healer over here, please? This man is _trying_ to kill me!” he shouts. The sound of it drowns in the busy, populous room. The teen who’d been staring at Harry squints at Malfoy.

Neville chuckles. “Sorry, sorry.” He waves his wand in a circular motion over Draco’s shoulder. “That should numb it for a bit. Anyway, that’s my bad, Malfoy, they’re not experimental any longer.”

“ _They_?” deadpans Malfoy.

“Thanks to me,” Neville smiles smugly, removing a small, clear pod from the Mary Poppins pockets of his robes, “they are indeed no longer experimental and are regularly used here at Mungo’s! Nothing short of spectacular, I’m telling you, these nifty little creatures. Did the studies and breeding all myself.”

Malfoy makes a sound like gagging — Harry wonders vaguely if he’s drank too much or if it’s the black, slimy leech Neville is lifting from inside the pod and holding up for them to see. “The Ethanophilis leech,” he introduces in awe. “Sucks alcohol right out of the blood. They’re brilliant, I’m telling you. Sobers you up faster than any potion or drug.”

Harry frowns thoughtfully. “Wow. Congrats, Nev.”

“I’m not sure I want to be sober right now,” Malfoy says, gaze dubious on the leech between Neville’s fingers that squirms at a sloth-like pace. “Nor do I want that slug giving me lovebites.” But Neville’s already sticking it onto Malfoy’s neck. The latter freezes, nose scrunching up, staring rigidly at Harry like he’s going to murder him for this later. It’s not his fault, though. He can’t object to licensed medical advice and years of expertise. Clearly.

“Won’t even leave a mark. I’m _telling_ you,” Neville states again, drawing a second leech from the pod in his hand and planting it on the other side of Malfoy’s neck. Malfoy hasn’t yet moved. “Right. Onto the boring part.” As he drops the leech-free pod back into his pocket, from the very same he produces a small vial of brown liquid that Harry recognizes instantly as Essence of Dittany.

“Don’t tear the shirt,” Malfoy says quickly. When Neville responds with a blank look, Malfoy finally lets go of his own shoulder so he can hastily unbutton his shirt enough to drag the collar of it down. The pale, nearly-glowing expanse of skin and pink nipple that this reveals distract Harry rather well while Neville applies the restorative and Malfoy’s flesh begins to knit itself back together.

“I’ll let that do its thing,” mutters Neville, capping the vial and smiling at Harry and Malfoy in turn. “And then I’ll be back. I’ve been working on this plant-based salve for scarring that’s just extraordinary, and while it’s still experimental, I do think you’ll want to —“

“Thank you, Longbottom. I feel sober already,” Draco grumbles, visibly attempting to relax despite the parasites suctioned onto his neck. Neville seems to find this amusing, and gives Harry one last nod before he wanders toward the bed shortways across the room from them — from what Harry can read, it’s labeled with a number in the eight hundreds.

After a beat of hesitation, Harry then lowers himself to sit on the edge of Malfoy’s bed, sighing deeply as he does. He watches as Malfoy shifts his legs to make room and crosses them at the ankles. And then he thinks.

St. Mungo’s is possibly the last place Harry had expected to end his night. Come to think of it, in the past hour, he’s gone from the Handmaiden to the Zabinis’ flat to the Wizarding hospital, caught up in a hurricane of passion and betrayal and cocktail-drunkenness on Malfoy’s part and painful, anxiety-inducing sobriety on his own. What is only more bizarre is what he glances up to find; Draco Malfoy, blood-soaked shirt half-unbuttoned, black leeches latched onto his neck, white, wilted hair flopping into his eyes, the welts of his splinch wound fading to pink on that exposed shoulder of his. He’s focused on his hands, laced together in his lap, and Harry thinks he might be deep in thought, too, until it becomes painfully obvious that all Draco is doing is resolutely ignoring Harry.

Harry’s barely even lifted his hand, not even decided its destination, when Malfoy raises own. “Don’t, Potter,” he murmurs, gives a brisk shake of his head.

Harry rolls his eyes. “You don’t even know —“

“Wrong. I do know. I know that you were going to touch my leg, squeeze it, try to glean from me how I’m feeling about everything, mainly Blaise, but also about _you_ , because that’s really all you care about at the moment,” says Draco.

Harry scoffs. “I was gonna ask if your shoulder felt any better.” He sees one of the leeches worm against Malfoy’s neck.

This throws Malfoy off, at least for a second, before he folds his arms over his chest and clears his throat. “I’m not speaking to you.”

“You literally just did.”

“We’re — no. Don’t interrupt me. We’re in the gray, Potter. We’re not in the black, where I’d be strangling you right now for _everything_ you’ve seen of me, nor in the white, where — anyway, we’re in that gray area between, where I do not particularly want to indulge you by answering your questions or listening to you, nor do I want to speak to you in general, but I will if I feel the sudden urge to communicate, as I do right now. But being in the gray means you can _not_ expect me to respond to your inane interrogation, as I haven’t quite decided whether I’m more enraged with you than I am embarrassed.” Malfoy, in his mission to look everywhere in the emergency ward but Harry, locks eyes with the judgmental teen boy in the bed next to his. “What do you want?” he spits, and the boy turns away with a wry smirk to return to fiddling around on his Muggle gaming device.

“Embarrassed?” Harry asks, trusting that his obliviousness will piss off Draco enough to force him to forget that they’re _in the gray_ , as he’d called it. “What have you got to be embarrassed about?”

It works. Draco just glares into the depths of the room before he finally answers, but it works. “Merlin’s tits, you half-wit.” He exhales deeply, and it sounds like a struggle, just as much as it does when he tries to stiffly breathe in to replace all the oxygen he’s just pushed out. “Blaise’s memories, of course.”

Harry does go for Malfoy’s leg that time. His own posture melts a bit, and once they get there, his fingers clench around Draco’s knee, and when Draco tries to push his hand away, he lets him, but then he grasps that fighting hand in his own, pinning it to Draco’s leg and squeezing hard. Malfoy’s Adam’s apple bobs in his throat and his gray eyes are wary, but he’s less combative, giving Harry’s hand as much compression as he’s getting.

The thing is, Harry’d never once thought about it quite that way. With each of Blaise’s memories that he’d sat through, as close to _lived_ through as an outsider possibly could have, his worry had heightened more. He’d breached Malfoy’s privacy, and that was the biggest deal. He’d seen him in compromising positions, sure, even vulnerable ones, about which Malfoy might now be ashamed. But Malfoy is decisive, he’s always been; he doesn’t give a shit about what anyone thinks of him, not anymore, because if he did, given his historical reputation, he’d never have been able to leave the house with such a shriveled, delicate, pieced-together ego. Thus, first and foremost, Harry had thought Malfoy would be angry with him for seeing what he’d never had his explicit permission to see, perhaps ashamed of the dark places he’d been in, the places he’d come from before Harry had encountered him at the Ministry back in March.

But not embarrassed. That, given the circumstances, has an entirely different connotation. Malfoy could be ashamed of having loved Zabini, of his Mind-Healer therapy, hell, maybe even because he’d cried, all irrespective of Harry. But he’s embarrassed… because it’s Harry who’s seen them?

“Draco, you shouldn’t be…”

“Oh, but I am,” says Malfoy swiftly.

Harry digs his teeth into the inside of his lower lip so hard he tastes blood. “Look, I know I said it earlier, but that was way too rushed. I _am_ sorry —“

“Potter.” Malfoy sighs out his nose, lips tightened into a line. “I know. And it wouldn’t even occur to me that you were some sick pervert and _wanted_ to keep watching them, the memories, because, one, I know you’re not — at least not that twisted — and two, you were bound by magical contract.” He shrugs his shoulders, then winces regretfully at the movement. “I do realize that I am the definition of unreasonable at times, but — Merlin forbid — if I’d been in your shoes, I would’ve been scared shitless to break a magical vow or contract of any sort, even if said vow or contract protected that self-absorbed nutcase I called my friend.”

Harry’s lips tug at a faint smile. He shifts further up the bed, reeling himself in using Malfoy’s arm, the one that’s connected to his at their tangled, crushed, numb fingers. Malfoy lays his head back against the rods of the metal headboard, but he doesn’t push Harry away or back off.

“That nutcase…” Harry murmurs, rubbing his thumb into the pulse point at Malfoy’s wrist. “You could’ve… I dunno. Hexed him, maybe.” His eyes flit up to Malfoy’s face, who still isn’t looking at him. “Could’ve gotten away with a whole lot more than a knee to the crotch.”

Malfoy licks his lips, shuts his eyes briefly, and when they open, he’s watching Harry’s hand massage at his own. “Losing me is punishment enough,” he says. His lips curve in a faint crescent shape, and then he sighs dramatically. “I’m amazing.”

Harry physically can’t _not_ grin, brows raised. He adjusts his glasses, tries to think of what would be appropriate to say that wouldn’t simultaneously make him sound like a complete fool, or a tool, even — _you’re not wrong, you’re so right, must be hard being so annoyingly amazing, god, fuck you, Malfoy_. But he blanks, so instead he moves his free hand to cup the corner of Malfoy’s jaw, leans in to kiss him tenderly so Malfoy’s lower lip slots between his own two. Malfoy laughs quietly before their mouths make contact, mutters, “Watch my leeches, Potter,” but the noise dies between them as he risks shifting his injured shoulder so he can press into the back of Harry’s shoulder with his hand. Just before they break apart, their adolescent neighbor mutters something like, “ _That’s disgusting_ ,” which only has Harry smiling smugly when he draws back, rubbing at the bridge of his nose and holding Malfoy’s impenetrable gaze that is finally, _finally_ fixed on him.

Neville makes his entrance shortly with a low whistle. “Sorry about the delay, lads,” he says, “but maybe not _that_ sorry.” Harry feels himself heat up under Neville’s gaze, and though he’s not sure why and it makes his muscles clench up in weird ways, it’s worth it seeing the easy smile now in place on Draco’s face. “The little girl across from you had a serious case of mysterious boils. Took me way back to first year Potions.” He’s holding a mortar with no pestle in sight, and he hums appraisingly as he examines Draco’s shoulder. “Ah. Nice! Not bad, not bad at all. I think, with the help of this, we’ll get you to no scarring at all, Malfoy —“

Malfoy eyes him skeptically, the smile still half-present. “Help of what?”

“My salve.” Neville lowers the mortar so they can both peer inside at the blobby, tar-like substance inside that smells, surprisingly, of lavender.

Draco’s eyes narrow, but he crumbles like shortbread within seconds. “Alright, Longbottom. Eat your heart out.”

Neville subtly fist-pounds the air in celebration before he goes about applying the sticky salve to Draco’s shoulder. He notes that they’re free to depart once the salve has dried onto Draco’s skin but that Draco should rest his arm, especially given that it’s his wand arm, peels the fat leeches off Draco’s neck and drops them back into their pod home, mentions that he and Harry should get a drink together sometime soon, and then is off to bed ninety-five.

Harry’s hand is getting sweaty holding Malfoy’s, but he doesn’t mind. Once Neville’s sufficiently far away — Harry doesn’t know why Malfoy waits, because the kid beside them can still hear everything they say — Malfoy mumbles, “I’d still like it if you told me exactly what you’ve seen.” He meets Harry’s eyes again. “I… I remain… Horribly embarrassed.”

Harry’s head tilts to the side. “Draco, you don’t have to —“ But Harry should really grow accustomed to being interrupted.

“Yes, well, I wouldn’t be if such was an option.” Draco cringes visibly. “Fuck, Potter, the engagement party was dreadful enough on its own. But you said…” He sits up, sniffs. “We’ll talk about it later. I think Longbottom’s slop has dried.” He pokes at his own shoulder, then pulls his shirt back into place. Harry does up the buttons for him, and, just for a moment, Draco’s eyebrows rise with surprise, but comfort and normalcy overcome him after he adjusts to the small gesture. “Shame. This shirt is done for. Even Tilly can’t get this much blood out.” He swings his legs to the opposite side of the bed and gets onto his feet, to full height, and Harry helplessly just watches as Malfoy tucks his hair out the way of his eyes. It’s apparent that they’re on two different wavelengths when Malfoy turns to see Harry still sitting on the bed. “Potter, aren’t you coming?”

Harry frowns as he arises from the sheets. “Where?”

“Over,” supplies Malfoy. “Coming over. I’m in terrible need of a bath. Drinking, leeches, blood, hospital air — ugh. Merits a bath.” Standing by the foot of bed seven, Malfoy claps his hands briskly together twice. Into the empty space two feet before him, Iggy whips into sight, an oversized — but correctly-sized, relative to his massive eyes — pair of spectacles perched on his nose, a book under his arm. Harry didn’t know house-elves could read — but trust Malfoy’s to be the first evidence of such. He hears movement from behind him, and the boy in bed six is upright, baffled by the sudden appearance of Iggy.

“Good evening, Master Draco,” he croaks softly, just before looking both left and right and then left again, as if he was preparing to cross a street. “Is we — We’s in St. Mungo’s? Is Master hurting?”

Draco smiles. “I’m very well, Iggy. No need to worry. I just wanted to see if you’d start a bath for me up in my chambers. I’ll be home in just a few minutes, and I think nothing would bring me as much joy right now as a hot bath.”

Iggy beams toothily. “Iggy is happy to, Master.” He turns as if he’s about to walk away but vanishes mid-step.

Harry approaches Malfoy’s side cautiously. “You want me to come to the Manor?”

Malfoy breathes impatiently. “You’re quite slow.” He proceeds to head toward the doors through which they had entered. Harry jogs to catch up with him.

“I’m just… surprised, is all.”

Malfoy hums pensively without looking at Harry, who’s fallen into step with him. “Why? It’s only fair. I did, after all, spend quite some time living at Grimmauld Place.” Malfoy reflects on his words for a moment, and then coughs abruptly. Harry brings his hand to the small of his back. “Not that — not that this is, in _any_ way, an invitation to come live with me.”

Harry snorts, and the entire walk through reception to the entrance via Floo, he can’t seem to wipe the wry smile from his face. “Any idea what’s going on between Ginny and Pansy?” he inquires as Malfoy retrieves a handful of Floo powder, just because it hadn’t yet crossed his mind to ask.

Malfoy blinks, but as soon as he meets Harry’s eyes, his shock turns to hilarity. “If you mean to ask what happened between your ex-Pottersexual ex-girlfriend and my incorrigible flirt of a best friend in the time before you arrived at the pub,” he starts, biting his lower lip and smirking, “I haven’t the slightest idea.”

***

Harry’s rapid-onset fear of coming face to face with Narcissa Malfoy is quashed the blessed second that he sets foot straight into Draco’s bedroom out of his personal fireplace. It’s an odd feeling, having seen this bedroom before, its corners blurred by the white, fuzzy edges of a memory, but only truly entering now for the first time. It’s silent but for the sound of running water through an ajar door near Draco’s bed that Harry hadn’t known existed and the soft, padding footsteps of Draco himself as he walks across richly patterned rugs and shrugs out of his blood-stained shirt. The drapes, tied up by braided velvet cords reveal windows that look out onto the back of the property, but as if on command, the knots in the cords slip loose and the drapes fall shut, leaving the room bathed in the soft glow of the candles on the nightstands that Iggy must have lit and then the sconces that Malfoy himself chooses to light at that moment. Malfoy folds up his ruined shirt and lays it on a black chaise, then glances over at Harry. His gray eyes are tinged with gold in the candlelight.

“Someone’s tense,” murmurs Malfoy as he rests his hands on his hips, giving Harry a once-over where he stands beside the fireplace. “I’m led to guess that you’ve seen this room, then.” The way he looks at Harry is imploring but not mad, and Harry stays silent if only to watch Malfoy strip down to nothing — shoes and socks off first, then his trousers, then his little, black underwear. When Harry’s eyes track back up to Draco’s face, he sees him smirking, and then he’s turning to stride toward the bathroom, which he disappears into, momentarily returning clad in that silk dressing gown of his that Harry’s seen on many an occasion, the sound of the running water gone. He approaches Harry, and it’s not until his long fingers have trailed up Harry’s arms from wrists to shoulders, leaving goosebumps in their wake, that he lifts his brows. “Tell me what you saw, Potter. And quit standing here like a dolt.”

He’s not mad, Harry reminds himself. And he’s not so embarrassed that he won’t tease, which is a good sign for all involved. So he obeys Malfoy’s command and no longer stands there like a dolt by lifting Malfoy up beneath his bum — though he squawks, he wraps his legs and arms around Harry like it’s instinct — and walking him over to the bed, where he places him primly on the mattress’ edge.

“Very funny,” mutters Draco, getting his bearings by tightening the belt of his dressing gown.

“I’ve seen you in this before,” Harry says, fingering the silky material as it slips over Draco’s thighs. “A couple of times.” At this, Draco’s eyebrow piques, but as if to encourage Harry, his hands move to curve around both sides of his neck, thumbs tracing his jaw. “The first time, you had pyjamas on underneath, though. It was… I think that was the first memory I saw. That was the argument. You were accusing him of only coming to visit you for sex.” Harry’s eyes dart tentatively to meet Draco’s, but it seems that he hasn’t looked away once, his face flushed but lips carefully smiling.

Draco hums. “I do recall that,” he says as he bumps his heels rhythmically against the sides of Harry’s legs. “I wouldn’t have chosen it myself as first-memory-first-impression material. I wasn’t at my best. House arrest had me going stir-crazy.”

Harry’s palms, resting flat against the mattress, paste themselves to Draco’s thighs, gently rucking up the hem of the robe. He lets himself smile, but only because Draco is, too. “You were running around, stripping off your clothes.”

“Oh, fuck.” Draco leans close to drop his head into Harry’s shoulder, and _Merlin_ , will this kind of proximity ever not take Harry’s breath away? It sounds exaggerated, like a cliché, even, but he feels literally like his lungs have been sucked empty, his air passages clogged, and it’s only a matter of time until the oxygen stops traveling to his brain and all that gets there is _Malfoy_. Draco’s chuckle is warm against his shoulder, and his hands shift to Harry’s chest so he can move his forehead to Harry’s neck. Harry gets a noseful of Malfoy’s silken dressing gown where his shoulder crowds him, and he breathes it in shamelessly — clean fabric, the scent of lavender from Neville’s salve on the shoulder beneath, the sweat of the pub night and his tiff with Blaise. “That part did slip my mind. Had I convinced you that I was a lunatic by that point?”

Harry licks his lips, stares up into the canopy above Draco’s bed. “Malfoy, you forget that I’ve known you since you were an entitled eleven year-old. Hadn’t ever seen you throw your clothes around, but I had seen you play the victim.” Harry shrugs, which tucks Malfoy’s chin more comfortably into the crook of his neck, and his hands inch higher along his thighs, short nails curling gently into the soft, soft skin. Draco isn’t completely smooth there, but it sure feels close to it because the blonde hairs on his thighs are so downy.

“That’s comforting, Potter.”

Harry smiles to himself. “And I thought your stir-crazy lunacy made perfect sense.” Harry feels teeth sink gently into the side of his neck, and Draco moves closer to the edge of the bed, arms circling Harry’s neck entirely. Harry doesn’t even have to move his hands to end up with hands full of Draco’s bare arse.

“What else?”

Harry rakes his brain. “The second time I saw you in this —,“ he tugs on the back of the robe, “— was, er. Right here, actually. You were — I don’t know. Doing accounting, or something.”

Draco makes a noise of affirmation, nails biting into the back of Harry’s neck. “And Blaise was…?”

Harry scoffs quietly. “Zabini was, naturally, trying to shag you.” His thumbs press into the sides of Draco’s arse where he knows sweet, little divots would be if he stood.

“Ah. I see.” Harry can feel it when Draco licks his lips. “And how did that make you feel?”

“Sweaty,” is the first thing Harry blurts. He has no regrets, not with the way Malfoy laughs a bit too loud too close to his ear. “I didn’t watch you fuck!” he protests. “But I was… still sweaty.”

“Of course you were.”

There’s a lull in words as Malfoy’s drags open-mouthed kisses up the side of Harry’s neck. Harry’s eyes close and he sighs. He knows this isn’t quite the mood he’d had in mind for sharing this, but Malfoy had said he’d wanted to know what Harry had seen.

“Er,” he breathes, trailing his hands up to the very base of Malfoy’s spine. “I’ve seen your bedroom more than once, too.”

“Color me not surprised. Blaise and I fucked as often as Mother was home, which was always considering neither of us could leave, and she wouldn’t have been very happy knowing I’d had my bare arse on the antique glass tables in the parlour. So we kept it to my bedroom.” He nips at Harry’s earlobe. “Most of the time.”

Harry’s been half-hard from the moment that Malfoy had removed his shirt, but he tries to keep his mind on his current intent, focuses on his fingers on the skin of Malfoy’s back. “You should know that Zabini also, er. Showed me, the. The last time.”

Malfoy stills, then leans away almost immediately. He hugs himself around his middle but he doesn’t recoil from Harry’s touch. “I’ve charmed the bathwater to stay warm,” he says offhandedly as he pushes Harry’s ratty zip hoodie off his shoulders. Harry has to let go of him to let it drop to the floor. He rolls Harry’s shirt up his body until Harry has to take over to get it over his head, and Malfoy plants his hands on the mattress behind himself, hunched over slightly, watching him. “That might be worst thing he could’ve shown you,” he mumbles.

Harry’s hands drift to Malfoy’s thighs again once he’d discarded his shirt. “Why?” he asks with a frown, genuinely confused. “You — you barely cracked.”

Malfoy snorts. “Then you misremember. I, for one, most definitely cracked.” He seems to try to crack his knuckles but when they make no noise, he drops his balled-up hands to his lap. “It sounds absolutely ridiculous, but I — when the Dark Lord put me up to killing Dumbledore, I’d never hated anyone as much as everyone who supported me. My father. Aunt Bella. I _hated_ them for it. But I loved them because I had to and I had for long before. Blaise — It felt like that. I hated him. But I couldn’t just _not_ love him.” He smiles ruefully. “It’s alright. Lay it all on me, Saint Potter. Ridicule me for hating someone for not loving me. And for — fuck, for comparing it to _that_.” He laughs, soft, but then swallows and lifts his chin so he and Harry are eye to eye.

Harry can’t deny that he flinches at the mention of the late Headmaster, but it’s been years. He’s long since come to terms with his own grief and ire and Malfoy’s involvement in his death. But at Malfoy’s behest — _Lay it all on me_ , for Merlin’s sake — he shakes his head and slides his palms to Malfoy’s hips so he can grip him by something solid, peering into his gray eyes.

“You know, Draco, unrequited love is something you just… have to get over.” It takes all of two seconds for Malfoy’s eyes to darken, so Harry plows ahead quickly. “But — but that’s not my point. That wasn’t the case for you. You had a right to be angry, to hate Blaise. Because no matter how many times he says he doesn’t, no matter how much he wants not to, he does love you, and he _let_ you love him and he led you on through all of this crazy shit —“

“How should you know?” Malfoy demands, lips pursed obstinately. “How should  _you_ know how Blaise feels?”

Harry just looks at him for a beat, then exhales a chuckle. “‘Cos he let me into his bloody head when he gave me those memories. I saw what you saw, Draco, and you weren’t the only one convinced.”

Malfoy doesn’t respond, and Harry can’t see his eyes anymore, just his pale eyelids, purpley with veins, and his straw-colored eyelashes. Harry’s eyebrows knit together and he’s already close, but he leans in closer so his forehead bumps against Malfoy’s.

“I can feel your stupid glasses, you tosser,” Malfoy mutters. He lifts his head so their noses brush, licking his lips as he looks into Harry’s eyes from so close that he must blur across his vision. “So when you watched that memory, you didn’t think I was a complete fool?”

Harry blinks. “No, of course not, and it shouldn’t matter to you even if I had.”

Malfoy’s eyes roll so all Harry sees is the whites of them, and then he’s sliding off the bed and taking Harry by the waistband of his jeans so he can walk him to the bath. “You know I’ve always cared about what you’ve thought of me, Potter.”

Harry bites back a smirk, because he thinks Malfoy’s serious fretting has passed, even if it’s frightening how he’s managed to transition from emotionally open to closed in a matter of seconds. “Is that a confession? I’d like that on paper.”

There’s a clawfoot tub in the center of Malfoy’s restroom. Harry watches the steam rise from it. Malfoy turns around and works on undoing Harry’s belt as he looks down on him. He’s suppressing his smile so much it’s only visible in his eyes.

“Sorry. You’ll just have to remember it without any witnesses to corroborate what I supposedly said about you, which actually never happened.” Malfoy appears complacent as Harry’s jeans drop to his ankles, belt buckle clanging against the tiled floor, and he dips down to drag Harry’s briefs down his legs, too. “Ooh, hello,” he remarks at the sight of Harry’s stubbornly half-hard dick, the head of which he grazes lightly with his forefinger before stepping back to slip out of his dressing gown. Harry narrows his eyes, but then Draco nods toward the bath, so Harry steps in, meaning he must hike his legs over its high, curved walls, but in the end it’s worth the struggle sinking into the blissfully hot water. Harry rests his arms on the walls of the tub and grunts a bit in pleasure as he removes his glasses, levitates them over to the sink counter.

Malfoy lopes in with much more ease. He lowers himself to settle against the curve of the tub opposite Harry, with his bum lodged between the muscles of Harry’s calves. Malfoy smiles furtively as he, with a few splashes that slosh water onto the floor, lifts his legs one by one so his ankles rest against Harry’s shoulders. Basically, Harry would have an eyeful of Malfoy’s cock and balls, but his view is shrouded by the water. Well. Slightly.

It’s at that moment that Malfoy chooses to poke his big toe into Harry’s ear. Harry’s first instinct is to grab onto the arch of Malfoy’s foot, his thumb pressing into the sole as he watches Malfoy dip his shoulders under the water, submerged until only his chin and up are above. He smiles demurely at him, so Harry rolls his eyes, taking Malfoy’s foot in both hands so he can go at massaging his arch with two thumbs.

“Feels nice,” says Draco in a low murmur, arching his neck back. Harry kisses the top of his foot. Draco rolls his eyes. “Don’t do that.”

“Why not?” Harry lifts Draco’s foot into the air, forcing his leg to bend at the knee. He examines it for a moment, one hand sliding over the lithe muscles of Malfoy’s calf, and then his eyes flicker to Malfoy’s face again.

“Don’t,” Malfoy mutters. Harry just smirks, brings his foot close to his face again. Sniffs. Cringes exaggeratedly. Malfoy groans and rolls his eyes, withdrawing his foot into the water with a splash that gets Harry right in the face. “Tosser.”

Harry’s half-chuckling, half-swiping the water from his eyes when he ends up with a lapful of Malfoy, their slippery limbs sliding together until he’s able to settle, back to Harry’s chest, head on Harry’s neck, manually drawing Harry’s arms around his middle. His arse is seated right up against Harry’s half-excited cock, but he’ll manage. If he bites his tongue and thinks hard enough of Umbridge in her knickers, he’ll manage.

Malfoy sighs. He’s got one foot propped out of the tub, and the other is crooked at the knee, his foot pressed to the top of Harry’s so their toes curl together. “Tosser,” he says again, with slightly less conviction this time, as Harry slides one of his palms further up Malfoy’s sternum. Malfoy smells nice, the smell of him curling around Harry with the rising steam of the bath, even if they’ve yet to really get to cleaning... well, anything. When they lapse into silence, Harry can tell Malfoy is calm at last — his breathing even underneath Harry’s palm, his legs relaxed into a spread against the sides of the tub, yet Harry can’t help but feel an unusual trepidation. It’s not just his dick, either, but it’s something rooted underneath his skin, gnawing at the muscle underneath until it leaves him hollow within. What had Draco said to him in the locker rooms just hours earlier? That he’d _wanted_ him? It’s a hefty word, but it can mean one thing and be a whole lot heftier than just physical want. Harry tries to relax, his fingertips brushing just over Draco’s heart, but can’t.

“Draco... what are we doing?” he asks and breaks the silence.

Draco’s response is unconcerned. He shifts, sliding lower against Harry’s front. “Taking a bath, Potter.”

Harry should’ve seen that coming. He presses anyway. “I mean — what are _we_ doing?”

Harry would need several more hands to count the number of seconds it takes Draco to respond. It’s after a long exhale that he runs his fingers over the hair on Harry’s knuckles and answers lightly, “We’re taking a bath.”

The worst part of that response is that Harry knows that Malfoy knows precisely what he’d meant. But it’s possible he’s asking for too much. Malfoy’s already confessed enough for one day, hasn’t he? It’s only fair. He’ll push him on the topic at another time.

Harry knows that he’ll remember to push, too, because he’s convinced that niggling, prickly, hot feeling won’t be leaving him any time soon — the feeling that the basis for… for _whatever_ is between them is that he and Malfoy have great sex and Malfoy likes to pick on him and Harry makes a great target for picking on that occasionally fires back with praiseworthy quips and nothing more. Malfoy had just said, minutes ago, that he’d cared what Harry thought of him. He’d sought Harry out when he’d been in a good mood. He’d let Harry hold his hand at St. Mungo’s, let him kiss him even with leeches on his neck and old, ill people around every corner. And that’s got to amount to something. He’s sure of it.

The only pushing Harry does later that night is when he impresses Draco with a waterproof lube spell and fingers him open while they’re in the tub. Draco gets tugs him in return, but only after they’ve had a serious debate about whether it’d be possibly to suck dick underwater after having consumed Gillyweed. Malfoy insists that Harry ask Neville about it when they ‘have drinks,’ as mentioned at St. Mungo’s, and Harry even thinks that Neville might indulge him with an answer, but. He’ll shelve that for the case that they squeeze all other conversational focuses dry.

It’s when Harry looks at the grandfather clock in Draco’s bedroom that he realizes he has about six hours before he has to head to work again. Draco seems to expect him to stay the night anyway, though, and he reluctantly allows Harry to spoon him for all of thirteen minutes.

Then he shoves him away. “There. You’ve had your fun. We’ve just bathed and you’re already sweating and I won’t let you have a nocturnal emission all over my back.”

Harry blinks his eyes open. He’d been half-asleep. And he’s now on his back, staring at the ceiling. “What? A noc — _what_?”

“Good night, Potter.” Draco curls in on himself, though he’s facing Harry, so at least Harry gets to see the gleam of his damp hair and the Grecian line of his nose in the glowing flicker of the remaining candles.

“I’m not fifteen,” Harry mutters glumly, because it’s been a while — a few months, maybe — since he’s had a wet dream. His fingertips skate against Draco’s forehead as he brushes his fringe from his eyes. He almost startles when Draco’s hand lashes out, but it’s only to grab Harry’s arm and fucking hug it to his chest.

“Mm. Thank Merlin you’re not. You were even more of a self-righteous prick.”

Harry’s eyes narrow, but he’s smiling out of habit, humoring the painful tug in the pit of his stomach. He can feel Draco’s chest move against his arm as he breathes. With a wave of his fingers, he extinguishes the candles. “Says the leader of the self-righteous pricks.”

“So you admit it?”

“Admit what?”

“That I was better than you at something?”

Harry can think of a number of things that Malfoy is better at than him. Potions, for one. Dressing himself. Schmoozing. But he plays along. “Yes, Malfoy, I admit it, you made a better self-righteous prick than me.”

Draco _mmm_ s in response. Sighs sleepily. Mumbles, “I’d like that on paper.”

***

Tilly is setting a silver tray laden with tea and pastries onto Draco’s nightstand when Harry awakens the following morning. It’s when he has to peel his face from Draco’s sheets — he’s stuck there with drool — that he realizes he should really invest in a better mattress for himself back at home, because those six hours were the damn best six hours he’s had. Draco is gone, which doesn’t much surprise Harry.

“Master saids to Tilly to wake sir Harry Potter before he is late, but he is awoken on his own,” Tilly says mirthfully as she peers at Harry over the edge of the bed. All Harry can do is smile and smack his lips a bit as he reaches for the tea with a muttered thanks, before realizing he’s stark naked on top of Draco’s covers because he’d kicked them off in the middle of the night. Tilly doesn’t seem to have noticed — she’s wandering off, picking up Draco’s bloodied shirt and the rest of his clothes from the chaise. She glances backward at Harry, who’s still holding the tea but also now clutching an ornate throw pillow to his crotch like a seashell on a merman statue. Draco would wring his neck if he saw. _That’s vintage Turkish silk, you vermin_ , he’d say, or some other plummy, adorable bullshit like that. “Master also saids to Tilly to tell sir Harry Potter that Master’s left clothes for him to wear.” She points with a long, bony finger to a neat pile on the coffee table, below which on the floor Draco has also laid Harry’s trainers. Tilly smiles absently. “Clothes for sir Potter. So generous is Master.” Then she traipses off, leaves Harry alone in the room with nothing but his tea, three strawberries and cream eclairs, and a nice breeze from the open window on his junk. One look at the clock tells him that if he doesn’t Floo to the Ministry within the next fifteen minutes, he’ll be late. He already is, but another fifteen minutes would mean he’s _late_ late, though Pansy will likely tease him about spending the night at Draco’s whether or not he makes a timely arrival. He makes do with a few spells to freshen up, stuffs an eclair down his throat, and at the very last minute, when he’s really got no other choice, he approaches the pile of clothes, his dirty, scuffed trainers the only non-threatening item in the vicinity. His clothes from the day before are nowhere to be found, and while Harry would have found it perfectly acceptable to wear them a second time, it seems that Draco hasn’t given him the option.

***

Harry passes Hermione in the hall down to the Auror Headquarters. She’s intently reading something on top of a stack of folders as she walks — expertly but somehow blindly avoiding all potentially dangerous, trip-worthy lumps and bumps in the carpet — and Harry has to say her name a third time to get her attention before she’s passed him.

“Hermione!” he says, rather emphatically. And that’s the third time.

“Oh!” She swivels around to a stop to face Harry and she grins tiredly when she meets his eyes. “Good morning, Harry. I was just dropping Ron off — we… we’ve gotten in a bit late today.” She rocks back and forth on the balls of her feet, her head cocked to the side the way it is when she obviously both wants to and doesn’t want to say something that's already entirely implicit.

Harry’s brow quirks. He smirks. “Did you?”

Hermione snorts, adjusts the file folders against her chest. “ _Yes_ , Harry.” She smiles. “Last night was fun, wasn’t it? Did you —“ She must truly be off her game that morning, because Harry’s already had time to forget about the abomination glued to his skin. “— Harry, what are you wearing?” She hesitates, and her smile turns funny, brows in a furrow. “You look like Steve Jobs.”

“No I —“ Harry bites his upper lip. Circe. Of course he does, because nobody bloody well wears turtlenecks as often as Draco does, much less in early June, and now he’s got Harry in one, and. Yes. He looks like Steve Jobs. He scowls at Hermione. “They’re Draco’s.”

She responds quickly. “It’s not a bad look, Harry! It’s just — it’s just unusual. For you.” She bops back on her feet again. “I like it, though! I like it. And, you’ll be happy to know that at least the trousers aren’t very Steve Jobs-esque. They’re quite fitted. Perhaps even a bit small. But not in a bad way!” She bites her lower lip, then steps close so she can fuss with his hair. “Everybody wears tight clothes in MLE because nobody obeys the dress code. It’s okay. You should see what Drop-My-Panties Parkinson is wearing today.”

Harry is so bewildered by that moniker coming from the mouth of Hermione, of all people, that he doesn’t even get out a reply before she’s speaking again.

“I know, I know. That was terrible of me. I’m — I’m not trying to shame her, I’m really not, it’s just. I’m personally biased.” She frowns, takes a step back from Harry once she’s satisfied with his hair. “Plus, I think she and Ginny were getting along quite well last night, which is a development I’m not sure how to feel about. But you —“ She giggles. “Merlin, Harry, you’re in Draco Malfoy’s clothes. I really have to run, but we’ll talk soon, okay? Come over for dinner tonight, maybe? I’ll see you!” She kisses Harry’s cheek and then she’s running, curls bouncing in a cascade down her back. “Oh, and I told Ron, I hope that’s okay? I thought he knew, I swear! Bye, Harry!” she calls over her shoulder as she just barely catches a lift before it plummets into the unknown.

“Told Ron —?” He’s left alone in the hallway, grimacing a bit at the rude lift that’s just cut him off. Whatever it is, it can’t be too dangerous. After the past day, Harry feels like a limp rag, all of his secrets wrung out of him, twisted to dryness as hard as could be. He’s not upset about it, even, because he’d overestimated Draco’s reaction to his confession. Then again, it may take time to settle in, but Harry is willing to dwell in blissful oblivion until then. As he turns to head toward the Headquarters, he thinks there might not be anyone who’d understand how he feels if he offered them a _Yeah, I feel like a rag, but a happy rag_.

Harry turns the corner to the offices. In retrospect, it will feel like a mistake.

Ron barrels at him with the speed and ferocity of an angry bull. “You’re shagging _Malfoy_?” he cries out, grabbing Harry by his arms, eyes agoggle, shaking him so Harry’s glasses slip slightly down his nose. _That’ll turn some heads_ , Harry thinks. “You’ve _been_ shagging Malfoy? And I didn’t know?” And he steps back suddenly like his hands have been burnt — they fly off of Harry like a knee-jerk reaction and then tangle into Ron’s own hair with anguish. “This’s gotta be a nightmare, I swear. You’re — Harry, you look like Malfoy chewed you up and spit you out.” His tone is high, slightly cracking, all the telltale signals of a Ron breakdown. Harry’s just lucky Ron doesn’t know who Steve Jobs is, or what he looks like, for that matter.

Harry sighs. His eyes dart around the office once, meeting the stares of too manyinterested onlookers, and then he holds up his hands at Ron, stepping toward him like he’s a frightened animal. “Relax, mate. You’re awake,” says Harry, real slow, brows raised. _Thanks, Hermione_ , he thinks sardonically, though it’s really all his own fault for letting the situation snowball to this size before telling Ron about it. “We’ll — just let me explain.”

Ron shakes his head ‘no’ briskly, still scowling in horror like he’s seen a massive spider. Harry can tell he nearly screams when, without warning, Creasey’s admittedly spider-like hand closes over Ron’s shoulder as he glues himself to Ron’s side, attempting to twirl a quill between the fingers of his free hand and failing. The feather flutters to the floor. Harry stares at it, but Creasey seems to have already forgotten.

“I know how you feel, Ron, buddy. Only recently found out myself. It can be tough at first, the heartbreak — ‘specially right after losing my Auror partner —“ Creasey pauses for a moment, and Harry simply _prays_ that he’s not actually choking back a tear-inducing memory of him and Harry as partners, which he’s not even sure there are many of, if any, and that he’s just spacing out, a tune of the elevator music genre on a loop in his mind as Harry’s always envisioned. “— but we, you and I, everyone else, all gotta come to terms with the fact that Draco can’t love us all. Harsh reality, I know —“

Ron half-laughs, half-chokes, eyes wild. “I don’t — I don’t have a _crush_ on Malfoy! What the hell, Clem?”

“Oh.” Clem frowns at Ron, then at Harry, and gives Ron’s shoulder a final pat before excluding himself from their conversation like he’d never barged in in the first place, backing away and saluting them both. He runs into Pansy, who shoves him out of the way without qualms. Harry has a sneaking suspicion she seems to be always on a coffee or tea run simply to have an excuse to flounce about Headquarters and soak in all the gossip one small body can hold. She then walks past, empty mug in hand, and smacks Harry on the arse.

“That’s a good look on you, Potter,” she sings over her shoulder, and despite being disrupted a second time in the midst of comforting a very distraught Ron, Harry can’t help it when he laughs, flushes a little bit, because _no_ , he doesn’t think he’ll be changing his look overnight anytime soon, but Pansy recognizes the clothes as Draco’s, and that’s enough to remind him that he’s in _Draco’s_ clothes, that Draco _himself_ had picked out for him, and they smell like him, too, the potpourri of Malfoy Manor and Draco’s woodsy cologne wrapping him in a hug. A tight one, at that. Draco’s trousers are tight.

Ron is speechless, it seems, when Harry pops his own little mental Draco bubble, and he reaches for Ron’s shoulder. “Ron, mate, listen, I know it’s weird —“

Robards sweeps past them. Literally sweeps. Harry can feel his robes brush against his ankles as they billow around him. “Potter. Weasley. My office,” he instructs. Harry and Ron lock eyes and stumble into step behind Robards quickly. Ron appears to break through his initial layer of shock — perhaps it’s the reality of them both fearing being in trouble again, which had become a weekly habit when they’d initially been partnered up — and glances at Harry from the corner of his eye.

“I dunno how I didn’t notice it happening,” he mutters quietly.

Harry’s eyes dart to Ron for a split second. “You were a little distracted,” he whispers, though for Ron, that explains nothing. There’s just white space in his memory where Pansy once was. “And I — it was on and off. For a bit. I didn’t know if it was actually happening myself, half the time.”

Ron cringes and makes to reply, but they’ve already set foot inside Robards’ office, all dark, rich mahogany from the floors to the furniture. “Leave the chitchat outside, lads,” says Robards. He takes a seat behind his desk in the massive, deep red leather chair, and Harry and Ron dawdle in front of the desk, side by side, like guilty schoolboys. Robards assesses them with squinted eyes, then picks up a piece of parchment from his desk. Harry feels a rush of air tickle through his hair as the door shuts behind him. “First of all, you two, don’t make me regret pairing you up again. It was purely in light of unusual circumstances that I approved this partnership, a partnership that’s nearly cost us limbs and lives in the past, but you’ve both grown since then.” His gaze flickers doubtfully over Ron. “I do hope.” Robards leans back in his chair and finally unfolds the parchment that’s been making Harry uneasy since he’d picked it up. “Anyway, Potter, I’d like to commend you for your dedication to your responsibilities on the Malfoy case this past month.” Beside Harry, Ron makes a garbled sound that Robards ignores. “This,” he pinches the parchment between his fingers, “is an owl addressed to me from Narcissa Malfoy that came in just a half hour ago. She’s grateful for your services, your protection of her son.” The Head Auror Vanishes the letter before lacing his fingers over his stomach.

“Thank you, sir,” Harry murmurs, because it seems right to. _Here’s to hoping this means we’ve reached a truce_ , Harry thinks, reflecting that he’d abandoned Narcissa at the Handmaiden when she’d begun to unveil the lie he’d been living for several months.

Robards nods. “Though you weren’t assigned to the Lucius Malfoy case explicitly, Potter, I’m sure we needn’t discuss the reason for having closed said case.”

Harry snorts. “No, sir.”

Robards’ eyes flit to Ron. Harry’s not sure what Hermione told him, or how she’d even mustered up the bravery to confront the Head Auror about the _unusual circumstances_ and holding his tongue around Ron, but Robards seems to carefully choose his words before he continues, gazing at Ron. “Weasley, I’ve been impressed by you, as well. In the past couple of months, you’ve increased your case efficiency score significantly, and your training clinic evaluations show that you’ve also improved in defensive spellwork.”

Ron’s jaw is practically on the floor, but he closes his mouth before Harry gets to nudge him in the side. Harry doesn’t understand it — he’d gotten into the training programme, made it out into the field, and still can’t seem to believe his eyes when he’s accredited for his work. “I, er. Thanks. Thank you, sir.”

Robards is unmoved by the display of gratitude. “I’ll start you two off on-call for petty offenses. In the meantime, Potter, Susan tells me you’ve got paperwork left for the Malfoy case. And as for you, Weasley — by Merlin, just clean your goddamn desk. I shouldn’t have to ask.”

***

Mouthwatering scents waft from the cramped kitchen of Hermione and Ron’s flat. Ron, clad in a pair of red, tartan oven mitts, carries a tray of buttery roasted carrots — still with the leafy tops on, like out of a culinary magazine — out to the dining table, where Harry and Hermione are seated. Ron is a brilliant cook — Harry would expect no less from a child of Molly Weasley — but what he’s never been able to understand is how Ron can cook a delicious meal but still find palatable even the worst of Kreacher’s cooking and a soggy, lukewarm midnight meal from McDonald’s.

“Smells good, Ron,” Harry says, twisting his glass of red wine between his fingers. Ron half-smiles but returns to the kitchen without a word. Hermione gives him a sympathetic look. Harry huffs. “He’s never gonna get over it, is he?”

“Of course he is.” Hermione touches his forearm. She’s had half a glass and is already flushed in the face. “I think it’s more the fact that you didn’t tell him, Harry, than the fact that it’s Draco —”

“I can hear you, you know,” Ron calls from the kitchen.

Hermione and Harry share a smile.

“— because _that_ , I think, we’d all just been waiting to happen,” Hermione finishes, then leans back in her chair.

Harry blinks. Ron saunters back in with a platter. _Smoked flounder_ , he’d mentioned earlier. Harry hadn’t questioned him.

“Not all of us,” Ron mutters, dropping into the chair beside Hermione’s once the platter has been set safely onto the table. He’s left the oven mitts behind, so he proceeds to cut the fish open right there and start portioning it onto Hermione’s plate. “Just —“ He picks in frustration at the tiny bones in the filet, eventually just exhaling roughly and fixing his eyes on Harry. “Why didn’t you tell me, mate?” he asks, voice soaked with disappointment.

Hermione both pouts and smiles as she draws her legs up underneath her, stroking Ron’s cheek and gazing with knowing amusement at Harry, who hesitates.

“Draco told me not to tell anyone,” he murmurs. Ron scoffs.

“And since when am I just  _anyone_?” Ron blurts, then holds his hand out for Harry’s plate. Harry gives it to him, watches as he dishes Harry his serving. “You know I’m not clever like this one,” he nods to Hermione, “I can’t figure that shit out for myself!”

“Actually,” Hermione says directly into her glass as she takes a sip. Harry looks at her reproachfully, but he knows she won’t stop at this point. “I didn’t know, either, until I sort of… walked in on the story of Harry and Draco _in medias res_.”

Ron’s brows furrow, picking at fishbones again, and several seconds tick by — Harry reads his mind easily, certain he’s thinking about Hermione what Harry thinks about Draco sometimes, too: _why can’t you just speak like a normal person for once?_ But then he turns in his chair and it screeches under him, expression torn suddenly between disbelief and disgust and intrigue. “Bloody hell, you walked in on Harry and Malfoy going at it?” He licks his lips, and then his face changes again. “And _you_ didn’t tell me? Traitor!”

Hermione grins so hard that Harry can hear it when the glass clangs quietly against her teeth. “Not quite, but almost,” she says. Ron shakes his head, resumes loading Harry’s plate with more carrots than he’ll ever eat. “I didn’t — there was a lot going on at the time,” Hermione offers uncomfortably a moment later, and Harry remembers that vividly, the moment that Hermione and company happened upon him and Draco in bed, so instead, he puts his own dignity on the line to save Hermione from her own web of lies.

“I — er,” he starts, and, well, it’s not the grandest opening to a confession. “I guess I didn’t tell you because, er.” He steeples his fingers, rests his chin upon them. “I’ve sort of found that I, er…”

Hermione, recovering from her snafu, now steps in for Harry. She’s beginning to smile again. “Oh,” she says, elbowing Ron. A silence. Then, “Harry _likes_ Draco.”

Ron’s finished with Harry’s plate, _finally_ , and he passes it back over. Harry doesn’t think he can stomach any of it anymore. He rubs his fingertips against his eyelids, knocking his glasses slightly askew. He can’t see Ron’s face, but he can bloody well hear the glee in his voice when he laughs.

“Shit, ‘Mione,” he mutters. “You’re damn right.”

Harry groans unintelligibly, drops his hands to his lap before deciding to busy himself with stabbing at his carrots with a fork. He’s pink all over, resolutely focused on his mountainous dinner plate. “Why aren’t you —? I liked it better when you were speechless and angry.”

Ron’s grin is also audible in his voice. “‘Cos, mate, I’m not surprised. At all.” Harry scowls, or tries to. He hates it when he’s predictable. Ron picks up his own fork, starts to scrape out an edible bite of fish straight from the platter to stick into his mouth so it’s full and his voice is muffled when he next speaks. “‘Mione and I talked ‘bout it, way back in school. Seamus and I had some bet going, too, ‘bout when you two would explode and give in. We forgot about it, we all did — makes sense, y'know, you barely saw that git for _years_  — but now he’s back, he's around, and you’re shaggin’, and — shit. Don’t tell Seamus you’re with Malfoy, yeah? ‘Cos _I_ bet you two’d go at it ‘fore the end of sixth year, but Seamus said you’d marry Ginny and Malfoy’d stay in the closet ’til he was thirty and _that’s_ when you’d finally — anyway, I think we’re both ‘bout seven years off from when it actually ended up happenin’, plus or minus, so Seamus would definitely cheat and find some technicality that’d mean he won —“

Harry gives Ron an incredulous look. Hermione has been giggling for the past minute. “Now who’s been keeping stuff from their best mate?” He frowns. “And I’m not _with_ him.” He looks at the untouched carrot on his fork that’s beginning to wilt. “That’s the problem.”

“Sorry, mate. The end of sixth year was kind of a shitstorm. And then there was a war.” Ron snorts. “Kinda forgot about my secret bets.”

Hermione holds her empty wine glass to her cheek and smiles at Harry like he’s a small, endearing child. “Oh, Harry. Why do you think they had that bet? It was mutual between you and Draco, that weird obsession. It doesn’t have to be a problem. It’s much less of a problem now, actually, that Draco’s shown he’s a decent person. A decent _man_. Not that bigot of a boy I once smacked.”

“That smack was brilliant,” Ron mutters.

Harry slumps in his chair and folds his arms over his chest. “It’s not that easy. He’s only just stopped being in love with —“ He cuts himself short, gnaws on his lower lip, and continues, “— _someone_ after Merlin knows how many years.”

Ron attempts to refill his glass by magic. It’s a spell he’s been attempting to refine for years, but he still manages to spill a few drops and stain the golden yellow tablecloth. “Then you’re the perfect rebound!”

“Ronald!” Hermione scolds half-heartedly, gently squeezing the side of his neck and leaving her hand to rest upon his shoulder. She looks at Harry with a small smile. “But do you know that for sure, Harry? Draco might have been over this _someone_ for much longer than you think.” Her head tilts to the side and she unconsciously massages Ron’s shoulder. “He seemed very happy to see you at the match yesterday.”

Harry wants to believe it. He wants to gobble it up and swallow it down and hold that belief inside of him until it becomes part of him. But after what he’s seen, and even after Draco’s reticence at his question in the tub, he’s not sure what he can safely believe.

“Alright,” Ron mutters slowly, dragging out his vowels and gesturing vaguely in the air with his fork, “while Harry’s being a lovesick downer, let’s talk about something else.” He smiles. “Gin’s moving house! She firecalled me earlier ‘bout it. She’s getting her own place and everything, now that she’s had to move out of Luna’s and back to the Burrow. It sounded like one of those stupid, impulsive decisions you make after a breakup, but she already seemed a lot better than she did yesterday, so.” He frowns in thought. “We’d best just be supportive, or else she’ll _make_ _us_ be supportive.”

Hermione sighs. “I didn’t think it was the best idea when she moved in with Luna so early on.”

“She called just to tell you that?” Harry asks. He feels a vague twinge of something like hurt, or maybe it's loneliness. Despite being siblings, it’s not as if Ginny and Ron had ever been particularly close. At some point, years ago, it would’ve been Harry she’d firecall to share exciting news like that.

But then Ron shrugs. “Well, no. She called to _tell_ me I’m helping her move on Saturday, so. It mandated that explanation. It’s this place way out in the country, too.” He holds up air quotes with his fingers with an air of jealousy at a professional Quidditch career Ron never really stood a chance at having. “She says it’s _‘ideal’_ for training during off-season.” He lowers his hands to wipe at his mouth with his napkin, eyes hopeful. “You’ll come help out with the move, yeah, Harry? You, too, ‘Mione?”

“Yeah, why not,” Harry says, more to his plate than Ron.

“Of course, Ronald. Don’t be silly,” says Hermione.

“Good.” Ron breathes outward. “She’s always nicer to me when you two are around.”


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GOODNESS ME, here we are! I've been writing this monster since February and posting it since April and I truly cannot believe it's now over. INFINITE, MASSIVE THANK YOUS to everyone who's been reading and commenting (<3!!!!!) and those who will read this. please enjoy, allllll my looooove <3

Being on-call for petty crimes doesn’t mean that Harry’s life turns on its head overnight after spending weeks, months babysitting Malfoy. In the days that follow, while Harry completes his paperwork and archives Zabini’s memories under ‘viewed’ in the Hall of Memory and Ron cleans his desk, or pretends to, the apotheosis of being on-call is being forced to roll straight out of bed — at going on two in the morning — and Apparate onto the scene to break up a bar-fight-turned-duel at the Leaky. Ron doesn’t even arrive until the commotion is over and the dodgy, half-drunk two-am patrons have been disquieted by an unanticipated intervention by Harry Potter (as opposed to the usual Auror trainee lackey).

“Get back to bed, mate,” Harry says, clapping Ron on the shoulder as his friend yawns wide, molars bared to the dark bar, nearly taking Harry with him when he interprets Harry’s words as an invitation to Apparate instantly.

On Thursday, the two of them attend a partnership-building clinic required of all Auror trainee-to-full time converts and their new partners. Robards had insisted. They’d both done it together, once upon a time, and again when Clem and Pansy had come into the picture, so on this third time through, they’re both yawning and dawdling about in the back of the cluster of fresh-faced young witches and wizards, as far from the instructor as the gymnasium physically allows. They’ve moved onto trust falls. Harry winces when a big bloke at least Ron’s height thuds directly onto his back on the floor as the  _achoo_ of his partner echoes throughout the space. She’d sneezed mid-levitation charm. Pansy and Creasey are in line to go next, and Harry thinks he’ll have an instant replay of this moment in just a few minutes, but Pansy will not have sneezed.

“That’s gotta hurt,” Ron mutters and leans against the wall. “The only good thing about this clinic is that they always cater lunch from that Muggle place by the Tube stop. But — shit, they closed up shop over winter, didn’t they?” He frowns, drops his head backward heavily. “ _Shit_.”

Harry smiles to himself but doesn’t comment. Ron clears his throat.

“So. Told Malfoy you’re in love with him yet?”

Harry’s first instinct is to whale on his best mate, but an overemotional reaction is exactly what Ron needs, concrete evidence to show Harry what an actual idiot he’s being. He just bristles.

“No.” Harry exhales out his nose, tapping the tip of his wand absently against the wall. “And I’m not _in love_ , Ron.” He hesitates briefly, tries to turn those words over in his mind, weigh them and squeeze them and understand them. “I haven’t seen him all week.”

“Yeah, mate, I can tell.” Harry meets his friend’s gaze just in time to see it flicker over him warily, up and down and back up. “Absence makes the heart grow pissy, and all that.”

Harry snorts. Smiles faintly. “Sorry. It’s just… the timing. It’s not… ideal.”

Ron nods in understanding. “He did have his dad die and his mum resurrect herself just last week.” And Ron doesn’t even know the half of it. All Harry is thinking of, really, is Blaise Zabini, but he’s well aware that Draco has more on his plate at the moment than just anyone might be capable of handling. Radio silence is normal. And it’s not as if Draco has made it a habit to update Harry on his daily life. He simply comes and goes, bringing orderly, clothes-ironed chaos and destruction with him. “You just need to get your mind off things, mate. At least we’re not on-call anymore. That was right shit, wasn’t it?” At Harry’s withering look and their both recalling the bar fight and Ron’s sleep-ruffled, ten-second visit, Ron claps him on the shoulder. “Shit for you, I meant. Anyway, I’d say we could go out drinking tonight, but I’m cooking for ‘Mione’s parents.” Both Harry and Ron frown in sync as Creasey’s bony body hits the unforgiving floorboards of the gymnasium floor as Pansy innocently snaps shut her compact mirror. “Good news, though, is Gin’s been saying that mum and dad are driving her mental — they’re fighting ‘cos dad’s gone and adopted this dog from a Muggle breeder, a Rottwheeler, I think? ‘Mione says it’s empty nest syndrome, whatever that means. But this canine berk’s gone and trampled all over mum’s vegetable garden and dug up her potatoes. I don’t mean — that’s not the good news, them fighting, but she wants to bump her move up to tomorrow, have us help her move her shit around, and then we can have beers and grill out back in her yard. She says it’s wicked, which, y’know, I’ll believe when I see it, but.” Ron drops his hand from Harry’s shoulder. “What do you think?”

“Potter, Weasley, don’t think for a second that I’ve forgotten about you,” the instructor calls in a voice that is strikingly reminiscent of Madam Hooch. Ron pushes off the wall, gives Harry a questioning look.

Harry smiles and nods. “Yeah.”

***

Ron has the coordinates for Ginny’s new house, so he side-alongs Harry there in the early evening after their shift on Friday. And Ron had said the country, but post-time-and-space-warp of Apparition, Harry finds himself standing at the far end of a meandering driveway, surrounded at all sides by a plot of green, clipped grass that extends beyond what the eye can see. When he lays eyes on the brick house up ahead, he breathes out a chuckle.

“No fucking way,” says Harry.

“Right? Like, I’d wondered why the hell she’d move all the way out to Wigton, but when you think about it, she’s gone half the year for Quidditch, anyway, it’s a bit closer to Holyhead than London, and there’s so much room — think we could manage to put up goalposts out there, Harry? With the right Disillusionment charms? Then again, they probably don’t have to be the greatest, there’s probably not a Muggle ‘round here for miles…”

Harry stops listening but he hums a vague agreement for Ron’s sake. He knows the house too well, as a matter of fact. He’d visited once, when the garden had been infested with pretty but gnarly weeds that snapped at the ankles of the dowdy realtor who’d sold the home to Malfoy, when the interiors had been blanketed by dust and neglect but still gaudy and charming in their own way, and a second time when him and a number of Slytherins had congregated in the transformed space as a prelude to Blaise Zabini’s grand European stag weekend.

There are no dandelions, however, because the landscaping around the front steps is orderly. And Harry thinks that, through the big window to the parlour, he can see that the walls aren’t tressed with black velvet, either. It’s as if the brick has been scrubbed raw, though, bearing a livelier red than he recalls, and the door has been painted a charming chartreuse. Said door opens and Ginny steps out, clutching two beers by the bottlenecks in one hand, and jogs over to meet the two of them. She slings her free arm around Harry’s neck, patting him square in the middle of his back in a hug.

“Hey, Harry,” she says as she withdraws, grinning and leaving him with a cold beer in his hands. She turns toward Ron, nearly going in for another hug, but she wrinkles her nose and stops herself in time, offering the beer to him instead. Ron’s expression is practically a mirror of hers, but Harry would receive glares from both if he pointed that out. “Thanks for coming. Hermione’s been helping me move stuff here from the Burrow, so all that really needs doing is moving shit to their rightful rooms.” She starts to walk backwards, hands on her hips, and casts a doubtful look at Ron. “I don’t think I trust Ronald Butterfingers over here not to break anything, though, so maybe you can get started on the food.” Ron scowls, but Harry thinks he’s secretly pleased with the prospect of sitting out back with a spatula in hand. Harry’s yet to say anything, though, but he only notices his own silence when Ginny stops at the foot of the front steps. “You alright, Harry?” She gestures to the house. “Do you not like it?” she asks, as if Harry’s opinion would affect her decision to move there altogether. It wouldn’t.

“No, no,” he offers quickly, laughing and shaking his head. He flicks his fingers to spell the cap off the bottle. Ron attempts to do the same, but Ginny merely rolls her eyes and reaches out to screw it off for him with her bare hands. Ron makes a high-pitched noise of protest. “It’s great, Gin. It’s really great. It’s just… isn’t it a bit big, for just you?”

Ginny smiles and turns on the ball of her foot, tossing and catching the cap off Ron’s bottle in her right hand. “Might be.” She takes all the front stairs as just one. Harry and Ron follow. “But, y’know, I figured it’d be easier this way. Don’t have to move into some tiny flat now only to get a bigger house later down the line. And that gloves contract paid real pretty. So, when I found out about this place, I thought… why not.”

Ron gapes at the parlour as they enter. Though it’s littered with unpacked boxes and bags that Harry assumes are Ginny’s contribution to the home, underneath it’s cozy and modern. “Bloody hell, this is nice. You didn’t do this yourself, did you? This isn’t even your furniture!”

Ginny laughs. “No.” Hermione appears through the doorway that Harry knows leads to the kitchen, smiling at the sight of the two of them. Ron is right, though. The room has undergone its second makeover since Harry’s last seen it, decorated in an eclectic way that only Draco could’ve managed.

“This isn’t fair,” Ron moans, slumping onto the squishy, yellow sofa and spreading his arms out along the back of it as he scans the room. “I’m the older brother. I’m supposed to have a sick house before you.”

“Too bad Auror pay is shite.” Ginny shrugs. “While I do revel in this display of jealousy, Ron, there’s raw meat in the kitchen with your name on it. The grill’s out back.”

Ron pouts for just a moment longer. He gets up, and on his way to the kitchen, he drags Hermione into him by her waist, who squeals when she gets a kiss to her cheek. Fondly, she pushes him off and strides purposefully toward Harry.

“Why’re you smiling like that?” Harry asks uneasily, though he has a feeling that she knows what nobody else knows that he knows. Merlin.

“Like what?” Hermione levitates a box that’s crowding the foyer out of her way. “Help me out, Harry, won’t you? Ginny’s got about seven different racing brooms and they’re all cluttering her dining table. There’s a broomshed out back.”

***

Draco gives up on peering at the rustling green leaves on the branches of the tree above when even the light of the setting sun peeking through begins to hurt his eyes. Pansy, sitting up against the trunk of the tree, has Draco’s head pillowed on her thighs, and grazes her long nails against his scalp in that motherly way that only she can. If he looks toward her, all he gets is an eyeful of red tube top, square jawline, eyelashes on cheeks as an evening breeze rustles through her ebony hair.

“Even though you’re just the meddler with a proclivity for gingers… thank you,” says Draco, sighing and crossing his legs at the ankles. Pansy had sat down at the foot of the tree, then made such a big deal of Draco’s willingness to lay on the grass in his Haider Ackermann trousers that he’d nearly just gotten right back up and left until she’d apologized. Draco isn’t always a stick in the mud. If he’s in the right mood, anything might strike him as doable — as long as the grass isn’t wet and patchy and muddy. In other words, when there's no mud involved, he isn't a stick.

Pansy huffs, and Draco thinks it’s a laugh. “I didn’t _do_ anything,” she murmurs, eyes still shut. “It — _this_ — was an accident. When Ginny said she wanted to get as far away from Loony and her Polish girlfriend as physically possible and I said I know a place in Arsefuck, Cumbria, I didn’t think she’d want to drop several hundred grand in galleons on it.”

Draco hums and smiles to himself as he laces his fingers over his chest. “Well, she did. She dropped them right into my pocket. I’m back in business, baby.”

Pansy cracks open an eye and inspects him with it. Draco’s smile drops and he stares back defiantly. “My, you _are_ in a strange mood,” she mutters eventually.

“I am not,” responds Draco in exasperation. “I’m simply… _at peace_ right now. Mother has settled back into the Manor, Father was, er, cremated yesterday.” Pansy’s strokes dig harder, and it feels better, and Draco bites his lip. “And now Ginny Weasley’s bought the only house I had on the market for asking price, no less.” He frowns, because Pansy’s still only got one eye open, and she’s still giving him that look. “Would you stop looking at me like that? I’m far less fucked up than you! You _actually_ went and shagged the sister of your Obliviated —“

Pansy’s hand covers his mouth. “Draco,” she warns.

He wrests her hand away. “Fine. I apologize, that was crude.” He rests her hand against his chest, lays his own hand atop it.

Pansy narrows her eyes skeptically, but then she reposes against the tree again. “Thank you. And I’m sorry for doubting you. I just don’t know if you’re actually alright or if you’re putting on a brave face and going home every night to cry like you did after Blaise broke up with you. And I _need_ to know.”

Draco doesn’t even know where to begin with that. “I didn’t _cry every night_ , mother of Merlin! And Blaise and I were never together. It couldn’t have been a breakup.” He rubs his thumb along the back of her hand gently in contrast to his hard, adamant tone. “I promise you, Pansy. I _am_ alright. And if I find out I’m not, I will be, as I won’t have to bum around and pull out my hair because I am now once again wealthy enough, thanks to one Harpies Chaser, to continue working. I saw an advertisement this morning, actually, for a dirt-cheap home in Brighton that’s been on the market for months, and I’m already positively _brimming_ with inspiration.”

Pansy watches him in silence, then smiles. “Okay.”

Satisfied, Draco holds up her hand, inspects the emerald polish on her fingernails. “Why are you even here?” he asks, almost airy.

“Why is it that you always assume I’m not invited anywhere I go?”

Draco frowns. “Because you’re usually not. And I know the Weasel is coming this evening to help Ginevra unpack.”

“While this may be true, and I was indeed not explicitly invited, I didn’t have to be. I was already with Ginny when she planned this little get-together. It was implied that I should be here.” She licks her lips, lifts her delicate brows. “And don’t think that I’ve forgotten about my stag night invitation that was _lost in the owl post_.”

Draco smiles wryly up at her, but he bolts to sit upright when disturbed by a distant swear. It’s Weasley, messing with the grill over by the house and sucking on one of his fingers like he’s just burnt it.

Draco’s nostrils flare. “If he prepares my food with that slobbery finger, I’m going to have to feign a consumptive fit and leave.” Weasley shoots fire into the grill from the end of his wand. Draco can’t say he knows much about Muggle apparatus, but his default setting is to believe Weasley is in the wrong, so he chooses to think that’s just not how a grill works.

“You could also _just_ leave,” Pansy says blankly and pats Draco’s thigh. Ginny emerges from the house and shouts incomprehensible exclamations at Weasley, who steps away from the grill with his hands in the air. Draco looks between her and Pansy.

“Have you two reached hand-holding yet?”

“It’s been less than five days, Draco.” She folds her arms over her chest, then smiles slyly. “So of course.”

Draco’s lips purse into an identical smile and he shakes his head. “And to think just last week you were calling Ron Weasley your soulmate.”

“Well, those were not the exact words I used. But the heart wants what the heart wants.”

It’s then that Hagrid wobbles out the back door, too. Except — no, it’s not Hagrid, it’s just Potter hugging about ten brooms to the point of looking like Rubeus Hagrid’s walking beard or a tree come to life. Naturally, he isn’t using magic when he actually needs it.

Draco only realizes then that they’re sitting under the tree closest to the broomshed — it wasn’t there three days ago, but as a thank-you to Ginny for taking the house off his hands, he’d magicked it together last minute — and now he only has himself to blame for the shed’s placement that Potter is now approaching him and Pansy at top, clumsy hobbling speed. His heart rate rockets. He hasn’t seen Potter since he’d left him in his bed on Tuesday morning. He wonders, thoughtlessly, if Potter still has his clothes. _Of course he does, you knob. What else would he have done with them?_

Potter promptly drops three brooms at the sight of them and he stops in his tracks before he can step on and snap the core of a shiny, new Firebolt. Pansy’s brow arches.

“Oh, hi,” Potter says, blinking.

“Hello, Potter.” That’s Pansy.

Both of their eyes turn toward Draco, who clears his throat and rises to his feet. Swallowing down his heart — _why is it at his throat?_ — Draco goes for casual. “Hi, darling.” And, okay, that word slips out like he’s got no filter, and he doesn’t have to look to know that Pansy’s eyes are round as saucers. He takes a few steps toward Potter, waves his wand so an invisible rope binds the fallen brooms together, and summons it so he can catch the bundle in his left hand. “I’d ask how you’re doing, but you’re clearly fine. I might’ve shown concern if I’d seen you using your _boundless magic_ to transport these brooms.”

While Potter was definitely shocked at first sight, now that he’s locked eyes with Draco, there’s a smirk playing at his lips. “Mm. That’s me, silly as always.” Potter pauses. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

Draco turns to head toward the shed. “And did you form that expectation before or after you realized that Ginevra had bought this house from me? This house that you’ve visited twice _with_ me?”

Potter chuckles somewhere behind him. “Before. But after, I wasn’t expecting it. I was just kind of hoping for it.”

Draco’s lips curl up so helplessly that he’s tempted to cover his mouth, but his back is to Potter, so thankfully he already can’t see. He says nothing, nudges open the door to the broomshed and steps inside. It’s a nifty little thing, neat and painted cornflower blue all over, simply because he didn’t want to be vapid and go overboard on the Gryffindor red. In a soft murmur, he _finite_ s the spell holding the brooms together and lays them carefully on the individual broom racks. He can tell when Potter’s stepped inside because his gait is heavy against the floorboards and his foot makes a proper thud. Potter snorts.

“This is nice.”

Draco turns on the ball of his foot to face him, several feet from the doorway where Potter’s still canoodling with his mess and tangle of brooms. His eyebrows are raised in some awfully distracted version of being impressed, and the moment that Draco smiles at him, cocks his head to the side and laces his fingers together in front of his body, Potter sends the brooms wordlessly flying to their rightful spots and slams and locks the door shut in one graceless but remarkable flourish of his hand. He approaches Draco until he’s got nowhere else to go, trapped between Potter’s chest and the blue-painted wall. He can barely breathe, but he manages to find words.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Draco mutters, voice just the edge of a scratchy whine because Potter’s got his hands on Draco’s hips, slipping down toward his arse, and he might have just whispered something like, _“I like these on you,”_ but Draco can’t be too sure because he’s watching the door, the one that’s just banged shut. Potter presses him into the wall, kisses the exposed part of his collarbone. “I — I may be an artist, but I’m no architect. I cannot guarantee that this shed is structurally sound.” His eyes flicker about the broomshed, and he winces at the creak the wall emits the more Potter leans his weight into him. “In fact, I don’t think it is. So I wouldn’t do that.”

Potter hears it, too, because he stops moving, pats Draco’s bum in a way that’s oddly not sexual, and draws back, pushing his glasses up his nose. He chuckles as he meets his eyes. “And we’re in a shed.”

“And we’re in a shed,” Draco echoes in agreement with his eyes locked on Potter’s, pushing away from the wall and onto his feet. He just watches him back, and Merlin, it’s a strange feeling, that warmth that spreads from his chest to his cheeks and feels like it might wriggle right out of his skin, sentient like some freakish insect, because Potter is an idiot but he’s a gorgeous idiot and Draco hates him, he hates him, but then he realizes that the thing is he really, _really_ doesn’t. Potter’s green eyes flash with amusement under his dark lashes.

He taps Draco’s waist, pushes gently. “Then let’s get out of here before your shack collapses.” His voice is rather befitting of the tentative but content silence between them, quiet and a bit hoarse.

Draco turns slowly, because he knows if he walks too fast, Potter won’t put his hand on the small of his back in that way that he likes. So he doesn’t. And Potter does. “It may be of dubious construction, but this is most certainly not a shack. It has hardwood floors. Call a spade a spade.”

Potter hums. Draco feels those fingertips curl in a tighter hold into Draco’s shirt when they step over the threshold one by one.

“If we’re calling things as they are,” Potter starts, and Draco knows where he’s going with this before he can even finish, because he glances at him and sees that glittering, sneaky mirth in his eyes that he loathes a little but likes quite a lot. He has a horrifying, gut-twistingly embarrassing flashback to sixth year Defense; Severus haranguing Potter, Potter giving Severus cheek, Draco lounging in his favorite spot in the back of the room, a vantage point from which he could laugh along with his friends at Severus’ admonition but look on distantly — like a lovesick third-year gawking through the window of Madam Puddifoot’s at some seventh-year Quidditch star, wishing it was himself in there with them — at Potter and his witty comebacks and his bird’s nest hair and that square jaw that Draco swears was not there the spring prior. Draco sighs upward such that the hair resting against the edges of his forehead flutters, just as Potter asks, “Am I a darling?”

It’s so expected. Draco drags his teeth over his lower lip anyway, and Potter’s eyes zone in on the motion, distracted briefly from his own smug smirk.

“You can’t both be a darling and talk about being a darling. It just doesn’t work that way.” He looks ahead at the patio that they’re fast approaching; grillmaster Weasley at the smoking contraption, Pansy sprawled across a lawn chair in conversation with Ginny, who’s perched against the arm of the very same chair. They’re not paying them any attention, so, feeling brave, Draco hooks two fingers into one of the belt loops on Potter’s jeans, so they’re tethered at several points — Potter’s hand on his back, Draco’s fingers on his trousers, and by Draco’s heartstrings, which are bleeding out all over and pining and craning after Potter in that way they have no business doing. “And, if you’d really like to start this discussion with me —“

“I would,” Potter says. When Draco rolls his eyes to him, he offers only an innocuous smile.

“Well, then I would argue that most people would not deem someone worthy of such a petname ' _a darling_.' It’s not so common, you see. They’re just plain, old darling  _to_ someone. Which, in this case... you happen to be.” Draco scratches at the nape of his flushed neck, tugs at the longer hairs that are begging for a trim. His words come out slow, almost pained, but they come out nonetheless. “You’re darling. To me.” Gods. Draco pictures, just to humor himself, how his father — may he rest in a peace that is interrupted periodically by his chastisement by the spirit of Grandmother Druella, who’d never liked him and won’t be pleased to find he’d gone this early on — would react had he been present for those words. His eyes flit to the sky unapologetically, and then his brows furrow. Draco’s been an atheist since he’d been able to form opinions on topics his parents hadn’t already done so for him, but he’s still vaguely sure, even after all the punishment, that if he had to choose a direction in which to look for his father, it would be down and not up.

When Draco’s internal monologue runs dry, he gathers up the courage to look again at Potter. He’s in a maroon t-shirt that clings to his biceps and his chest and in frayed, Muggle-esque jean shorts that look a bit too much like someone’s just cut the legs off a full-length pair of jeans, but Draco can forgive him because of the strong legs underneath. All the wryness has gone from his face, and Draco feels his fingers slip off his back to brush along the inside of his wrist in the direction of the palm of his hand.

“Hey,” Potter murmurs, just to get Draco to hold eye contact, he thinks. “You too.” And Draco has to swallow hard against a ridiculous face or noise, but it’s enough. Potter’s fingers trace the heart line on Draco’s palm just as Hermione bursts through the doors and out onto the patio.

“I made Sangria!” she sings just slightly too loud; Draco wonders if any of the wine has actually made it into the drink. Two full pitchers of deep red liquid decked with long, glass spoons fluidly stirring the drink inside and a half-dozen wine glasses float out behind her. They settle onto the glass table amidst the lawn chairs. “And it looks like the sun just might come out.” She smiles at all four of them — Draco, Potter, Pansy, and Ginny — and then elegantly summons plates, cutlery, napkins, and an enormous bowl of salad through the open door with a guiding wave of her wand. Draco considers this a feat; not the magic, but the smiling at a general audience that includes Pansy. Draco is just sitting down onto the plush sofa — outdoors, yes, courtesy of his personal best Impervius charm — when Pansy clears her throat, a glass of Sangria already in hand, her lips stained reddish.

“Granger, this tastes like Ribena,” she says. “Did you pour all the wine down your hatch instead?” When she and Draco lock eyes, they share a little smirk. Ginny touches Pansy’s knee as an unspoken request to try her drink. Pansy understands it, apparently, because she obliges and hands it right over. Draco raises an eyebrow.

Hermione sighs. “There’s a perfectly good amount of alcohol in there, P-Pansy. I assure you.” After she’s checked on Weasley at the grill, she ducks back inside.

Pansy’s gaze is bored as her eyes follow Hermione in. Then she twists in her seat, swinging her legs off the chair and striding over to where Draco sits. Potter’s on the verge of lowering himself down beside Draco, but when Pansy stops short and bats her eyes expectantly, Potter takes one look at her and abruptly changes course, planting himself on the ground between Draco’s feet. It’s totally fine on Draco’s behalf. He smiles to himself, shifts his legs so his knees firmly bracket Potter’s sides.

Pansy’s shrill voice beside him startles the smile right off his face as she bounces down beside Draco. “Potter,” she hisses, and Potter, ignorant as ever, doesn’t hear her the first time, so she says, “ _Potter_ ,” and his head whips around. “You can conjure anything, can’t you?” Naturally, she doesn’t wait for an answer. “Conjure some more triple sec into the punch that Granger’s calling Sangria, yeah?” She points at it, at the innocently stirring spoons, and blinks.

Potter sits upright slightly. Draco resists the urge to curl his fingers into the hair at the back of his head. And when Potter turns his head again to address Pansy, Draco’s fingers itch to caress that three-day-old stubble on his jaw. Merlin, he must be in a mood, or something, because he’s usually the portrait of self-restraint. “You know, when conjuring alcohol, under the hood, you're usually first conjuring the ingredients from which it’s made, which isn’t all that difficult. It’s the expedited distillation spells that get pretty tricky, especially with spell combination —“

“Did I ask for a lecture?”

Potter’s jaw is still open, and then, it’s as if he realizes to whom he’s speaking, and he releases a deep sigh as he blindly lifts his wand to shoot a spell at the pitchers on the glass table. Two equally portioned, crystal-clear streams issue from the end of it, and they finish waterfalling into their respective pitchers just as Hermione’s stepping outside again.

“Happy?” Potter mutters. Pansy just winks.

“Play nice, children,” Draco says, feeling a strange surge of pride that he can’t quite smother enough to stop himself from sliding his hands onto Potter’s shoulders, curving them around the round muscle and up toward his neck. When Potter relaxes and tips his head back to look at him upside down, Draco thinks it’s worth every second of public embarrassment — public being three Gryffindors he’s known for over a decade and his best mate.

“Asking Harry about _any_ useless magic implies you want a lecture,” Ginny says from where she’s assumed Pansy’s old seat, reclined but with her legs spread so she’s got a foot on the ground on each side of the chair.

Pansy’s head cocks to the side. “That’s hardly _useless magic_ ,” she defends.

“What’s useless magic?” Hermione asks as she steps outside, delivering a stack of plates to Weasley before joining the four of them and taking an open seat.

Pansy snorts, which earns her a confused glare from Hermione, but Draco would really rather not have the tensions heighten any further.

“A lubrication spell,” Draco clarifies. “Though I suppose Ginevra just hasn’t had a need for one.”

Pansy coughs, though it might just be at the amount of vodka Potter’s added to the Sangria.

“Oh,” Hermione murmurs, angling herself on her chair toward Ginny. “Well, Ginny, even if that’s true, I wouldn’t take it for granted that such spells exist. I, for one, think they can be not only brilliantly useful but also great safety precautions for those times and interests that you may not at first expect to arise.” Ginny, with her arms folded over her chest, just stares with barely-repressed amusement at Draco. They share a secretive grin that pretty much says _of course she’s goddamn used it_. Potter’s fingers press into Draco’s exposed ankles.

“Food?” Weasley straight-up hollers, though the grill isn’t all that far away. Draco tries not to grit his teeth as his eardrums protest at Weasley's volume. Potter hops up to help his mate out, but not without a squeeze goodbye to Draco’s knee.

Pansy’s elbow nudges into Draco’s side as he leans over to pour himself a glass of Sangria. Though he knows that most of the time, Pansy can read him like his feelings are written in ink on his forehead, he has his drink to his lips as he sits back in the hope that his face won’t betray him.

“‘Darling’?” she drawls with a grin, swirling her drink around in her glass as she pulls up on her tube top.

Draco gazes at her for a moment, tries to affect an air of coolness as he peers out into the horizon line of Ginny’s endless property. “It’s new.”

“Is it?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm.”

Draco turns, lifts his brows. “What?”

“Nothing. Just...”

“ _What_?” A bit more peeved this time.

Pansy leans over to set her glass down on the table to free her hands, though Draco’s not sure why until she’s reaching out to _take_ his top leg from where his legs are quite comfortably crossed, _thank you very much_ , and use that leg to manhandle and drag Draco halfway into her lap. She pats the inside of his thigh at the same time as she brings her hand up to — Merlin — squeeze at his cheek, all while snickering. Draco groans but lets it happen, lest she magically bind his wrists, because he knows Pansy well enough to know that’s a spell she has right up her sleeve.

***

Harry is heading out of the toilet inside Ginny’s — he can hear his friends still laughing outside, and Ginny’s put on her favorite Muggle station that’s been playing 70s glam rock for the last hour — slightly too full of steak, salad, and strong Sangria when the restroom door practically slams right back on its hinges. It shoves him back several steps and he catches himself on the edge of the sink, pain coursing through his leg, momentarily bewildered and then suddenly concerned that perhaps this house has something against him for the conversation he’d had with Draco here the very first time he’d visited. The door opens, though, and Pansy slips inside, flashing Harry an uncharacteristically friendly smile as she shuts it behind her. And locks it. She whirls around to face him and rests her bodyweight against the door, arms folded over her chest.

“What are you up to, Potter?”

Harry, with an aching kneecap where the door had struck him, rubs at the bridge of his nose. He has a good few inches on Pansy and _more innate magic than two adult wizards combined_  (or so a Healer once claimed), but somehow it doesn’t help him fear her any less. Even her presence is patronizing. “Er, just using the loo, had to —“

She lifts her palm, so Harry shuts up. “And did you wash your hands?”

He’s beginning to sweat just under her gaze. He swears that he did, but feeling at his hands, they aren’t even damp — or did he dry them? “Er.” He turns toward the sink and switches the faucet on, scrubbing furiously. “Was the door slam really necessary?” he asks, eyes flashing to her out of the corners. He doesn’t expect to find her standing there beside him at the sink, and, yep, there she is — when he lifts his head to look in the mirror, she’s smiling at him.

“Not at all.” Harry watches her through the mirror as she tilts her chin upwards to peer at him. “What are your intentions with Draco?”

Harry isn’t sure where to look — he’s fairly certain that if he were to look at Pansy through the mirror, she'd be looking back, and if he were to look at her directly beside him, she'd be looking back there, too. And if he had a way of looking at both, her two eyes would split up the tasks… a frightening thought. He swallows hard. “I… I don’t…” He shakes his hands dry.

“In your defense, I wouldn’t be asking you if the circumstances were different. I mean, you’re the Wizarding world’s sweetheart, even while you’re also somehow their favorite man-whore bachelor —“

“Hey!”

“— But, just.” Pansy’s head tilts to the side, lips pursed in a tight line, and then she’s smoothing out the shoulders of Harry’s t-shirt, which is disconcerting to say the least. “I knew Blaise for _years_ , Potter. And I _knew_ he was a dickhead. I just didn’t know he was that kind of dickhead.” She places her hands on her hips. Harry can’t remember facing her, but now they’re eye to eye, and Pansy appears earnest and _only_ earnest, all thespian superiority set aside. “And I try to not coddle Draco too much, but sometimes it feels like I’m doing too little. But I just want him to be able to handle shit because he’s had such _rotten_ luck.”

“Oh. Oh, right, of course.” Harry frowns. Pansy flinches when he squeezes her upper arm, but the tautness in her shoulders fizzles away the longer he keeps his hand there. “Look, I’m — I don’t really know what I’m doing, I’ll tell you that. And I can barely get Draco to acknowledge that we’re doing anything in the first place. But I’m —“ He snorts, scrubbing his fringe away from his face. “— I don’t want to hurt him. For a lot of reasons, I don’t want to hurt him; one of them being that I don’t want to drive him away. Merlin knows he runs away enough without me trying.” Harry smiles slightly when Pansy does, too. “And another, er. I like him. A bit. And he’s been around me for the past few months and I don’t know what I’d do if things went back to…” He pauses, flounders, then feels his cheeks burn warmer. “See, I can’t even call it normal. Because mad as this is, _this_ is now normal. To me.”

Pansy’s chin dips as she nods. She seems to be digesting his words, which Harry understands, because in his head, under his buzzing skin and his rushing veins, he’s not sure if anything he’s said makes sense, because it all seems to be streaming from some unconscious, bottomless pit in the middle of his chest, bypassing his brain and moving right out into stuffy air of the cramped restroom they both stand in. If she won’t accept that answer, he’s very much ready to dump open that pit, to keep going, because _fuck_ , he knows there’s something there, something real that makes it so his control of himself is no longer wholly internal, but lies on the outside, dependent on Draco and his mood and his whereabouts. He’s even prepared to debate with Pansy that Harry having _feelings_ is fucking legitimate (even if controlled by a connection to an evil sadist’s mind at the time): take exhibit A, Arthur Weasley in the Department of Mysteries —

“Alright.”

Harry returns to present reality. And, unsurprisingly, says nothing. He just looks at Pansy, lets out a breath he’d apparently been holding.

“I accept your honorable, if romantically pathetic, intentions.”

Harry smiles tentatively. “Yeah?”

Pansy shuts her eyes for an emphatic nod. “Yeah.”

“Brilliant. Thanks.” Harry breathes in, out, then gestures vaguely at the door that Pansy had locked. “Can we get out of here, then? I’m boiling.”

“Yeah, alright. All the Draco talk is getting you hot,” answers Pansy, and Harry sighs in relief, but just as he’s about to open the door for her, she stops him with a hand on his shoulder. “Hold your hippogriffs, bruv. I know you’re omnipotent and all, but if you hurt my sweet, strange boy, I will put up a fight.” Harry wants to tell her he’s fully aware of that, but he falls silent when Pansy morphs her hand into something resembling a harpy’s foot, ugly, vicious talons and all, digging into his flesh to hold him in place, threatening to break the surface and draw blood. He meets her eyes, which are lined in black, and nods swiftly. Pansy releases him from her clutches. He, in turn, opens the door for her, and she bounces out. Harry rubs a hand over his cheek, numbness fading from his body as he once again recognizes the existence of the real world beyond this toilet, the senses to which Pansy’s proximity anesthetized him— his mates, his uncomfortably full stomach, his wine drunk state. Draco. He follows her out.

“Fact of the matter, Pansy,” Harry says, raising his voice to catch Pansy’s attention where she’s already a few steps ahead. She looks at him curiously over her shoulder, slows to a stop in the kitchen doorway. “I think you’re great with Draco. You’re… you’re not doing too little. You’re just right.”

Pansy gives him a cautious once-over, then props herself up in the doorway. “That’s nice of you, Potter.”

She doesn’t smile, but she also doesn’t _not_ smile. Harry does. They’re both there, hovering by the kitchen and not speaking, so Harry clears his throat. He’s scratching the back of his neck, his other hand on his hip. “So… what are your intentions with Ginny?”

It takes a moment, but Pansy’s lips curl into something wicked. It’s as if his words prompt her to stand a little taller. “Just to have fun.”

***

Draco hasn’t moved from his spot on the sofa in three hours. Potter had brought him his plate there, and he’d eaten without a table in front of him and a napkin spread across his lap, which had been an adventure all its own. He hasn’t had more than his first drink, as the memories of Monday night are still fresh in his mind, but everyone else has. Frankly, Draco quite enjoys being stone-cold sober while the motley crew is inebriated around him. He can simply sit and observe, not be the ridiculous fool he knows he’d be if he was equally pissed. Hermione didn’t notice that Pansy had spiked her Sangria — she’d thought it marvelous upon her own first taste, thinking it her own feat, which Draco found adorable — and Potter, _Harry_ , had disappeared inexplicably for a while but now he’s back, and he’s between Draco’s legs again, just not on the ground this time. He’s just shifted so he’s not quite on Draco’s lap, but he’s stealing much of Draco’s sofa cushion with Draco’s legs astride him. In truth, it’s lovely, because it’s rather easy to hug him from behind and it’s hard not to smell him, and Merlin, Draco’s so warm he’s sweating and he doesn’t even mind. That’s one of the perks of having a clear head; Potter will sprawl all over him like he has no boundaries, like he’s forgotten about Draco’s usually _very_ clear boundaries — to which Potter is a unique exception — while Draco is entirely cognizant of it all. He’ll be able to wake up the following morning and recall that while self-possessed he’d, strangely enough, enjoyed every second of it.

At the moment, it’s Potter and Ginny versus Weasley, squabbling about subjective Quidditch topics in which Weasley is apparently inherently _wrong_. Pansy’s behind the sofa on which Draco sits, dancing by her lonesome to the new White Stripes album — she’s more enthusiastic about Muggle culture by the day, Draco swears — and only Draco and occasionally Ginny are keeping tabs on her. “Needs more hip gyration,” Draco comments on the off chance that he’s not whining, “Good god, you’re _embarrassing_ me _,”_ at her. Hermione wanders about Ginny’s patio, conjuring small, round, colorful lanterns to float about in the deep-blue night air swallowing them up.

His arms dangle around Potter’s shoulders, and he’s such a hypocrite, really, playing with the collar of Potter’s shirt, inadvertently stretching it, because he’d bite off Potter’s wrist if he did the same to Draco, because cashmere cannot bounce back after maltreatment by barbaric male hands. Even the best charms can’t restore its former glory.

The best part, to Draco, is that when Potter had returned, he’d kissed Draco — albeit shortly — directly on the lips for all to see, and except for Weasley’s cheesy thumbs-up at Potter and Pansy’s overly angelic, I’m-not-to-blame-for-this smile, nobody had batted an eye.

Potter leans his weight back heavily against Draco, who can barely breathe and he’s lightheaded with heat and Potter to begin with. Potter is sticky and hot and smells like sweat and grill smoke and _Potter_ and Draco locks his arms so he’s holding onto his own elbows around Potter’s neck as that head of his sags against his shoulder.

“You’re crushing me,” Draco informs him. He can barely look Potter in the eye, he’s that close.

Potter’s fingers dance along Draco’s thigh. “You’ll be alright.” And he smirks, the little shit.

Draco ignores that, nose wrinkling up and tongue poking out in concentration as he shifts and squirms underneath and behind Potter until he’s successfully draped his own legs across the insides of Potter’s jean-clad thighs. Then he exhales, tuckered out by momentary exertion, and allows himself to enjoy the feeling of Potter’s lips brushing against his neck. Potter’s hands — rough palms and lovely hairy knuckles and all — drag from the creases of Draco’s thighs to his knees and then back down again. Draco’s never felt more like a slag for human contact, but it's contact that's requited, all of the warmth and affection and kissing is returned, so to hell with worrying about clinging. Draco barely catches Potter’s next words because Ginny bursts into laughter four feet away.

“Are you hard?” Potter mutters against his jaw.

Draco’s light brows crinkle, but then he tries to see for himself, tries to move a muscle in that sweaty mess of limbs and muggy air down below, and when he undulates against Potter’s arse, he gets a frustrating kind of half-relief. So. “Maybe,” he replies carefully, and Potter chuckles into his skin, wetting it with just a hot breath. Then he hums, squeezing Draco’s thighs, sending a jolt of energy up his spine though it’s dampened by the time it reaches his heavy, fuzzy head.

“Draco, what are we doing?” Potter’s voice comes out slightly headier than Draco expects it to.

“Mm… You were having a senseless quarrel with Weasley, though you’d already won ten minutes ago. I had my money on him, so, really, thanks for that.”

When Potter doesn’t reply, give a cheeky retort or anything, Draco’s arms loosen slightly around him, finding himself feeling absurdly insecure and out of place all of the sudden. What the hell is he _doing_? Acting like this, holding Potter like this, and most of all acting like it’s normal?

“What?” Draco mutters, palms moving to Potter’s shoulders, and Potter sits up against him just enough that Draco can meet his eyes. His gaze is a bit too intense for Draco’s liking, so he lets himself look at Potter’s nose and mouth and chin instead.

He watches as Potter’s lips curve into the faintest of crescent shapes, and Draco feels rightfully silly when he’s flooded with relief that he’s not _angry_. “I meant, what are we doing?” he mutters with a lift of dark brows, and, ah, that’s the question, isn’t it? That’s the question of the night, of the week, the one he couldn’t quite answer in the tub on Monday night, the reason Pansy continues to elbow him and wink at him this evening, the reason that sitting like this, like an oversized koala bear with tartan-print trousers on with Potter as his eucalyptus tree feels so right but concurrently feels like he’s standing on the edge of a cliff, peering down into a vast, dark, misty abyss that might just catch him and bounce him softly like a mattress if he were to fall but could just as easily stab him and pierce him straight through and bind him there like Devil’s Snare until he regrets, ten lifetimes over, that he’d dared to stand on the edge of that cliff in the first place. When Draco blinks, he knows from Potter’s expression that he’s now the one who hasn’t responded.

Potter pats the outside of Draco’s thigh, drums his fingers against it. “Where did you go just now?” he asks, and Draco’s too caught up in his prior question to even attempt to rebuke Potter for that humorous quirk to his lips.

“There was… there was a cliff,” Draco murmurs vaguely, eyebrows drawn together, and fucking Potter looks fucking amused, but then his arms tighten securely around Potter’s neck again and he sighs. “We’re seeing each other,” he tells him, eyes steadfast on the bit of Potter’s shirt collar that he’s been mindlessly picking at. “You and I, we’re seeing each other, because I would find it truly horrifying were you to show up at the Manor and tell me we’ve got to stop doing what it is we’re doing because you’re engaged to the mystery brunette and you’ve been in love with her all along.” Draco’s eyelids flutter in a slightly spastic series of blinks. “Which I really hope you haven’t been, because the only reason I can say this with such confidence is that I’d been living with you until last week and I don’t recall seeing you two together since that training clinic,” he adds in a rush.

Potter puts pressure against Draco with his weight, because apparently he’s gotten around to sitting ramrod straight at some point in his personal spiel, and when Draco consents to loosening up and leaning against the couch again, Potter smiles faintly and lays his head against the couch cushion just above Draco’s shoulder. It’s really, truly quite sweaty down there between Potter’s back and Draco’s stomach. Potter’s hand, the one that’s not playing with Draco’s thigh like it’s some sort of squeezable stress toy, rises to cup Draco’s cheek, brushing his thumb against the softness in the hollow between his cheekbone and jaw.

“You tend to say a lot of things at once, so ‘m gonna try to address them all,” Potter says, voice soft and gravelly. Draco nods. “First,” Potter grins, “I’m not seeing Danica. She’s dating the Head Auror, actually. I think that’s public knowledge now — not that you’d keep up with that. Second, I’m not in love with her, nor am I seeing anyone else, because this bizarre fucking thing happened, Draco, after we slept together. I haven’t wanted anyone else. It’s _weird_ , yeah?” Potter’s eyes are narrowed, his lips curved in a wry smile that Draco’s never wanted to kiss more.

“How very unusual,” Draco whispers in agreement. His lips twitch, composure failing slowly but surely.

“Yeah. And… what else did you say? Oh, that we’re seeing each other.” Potter’s thumb nudges the corner of his mouth, and Draco thinks of the first time he’d done that, when they’d been in the toilets at the Handmaiden and Draco had shoved him away like he’d been scalded. “Yeah. You said that, yeah?” Draco knows Potter is drawing this all out on purpose. He rolls his eyes and nods. “Thought so. Mm. Good answer.”

Draco lays his forehead against Potter’s, and he feels like a disgusting, PDA-drenched mess, but it feels like there’s no one else there. Even Weasley’s cackle drowns into the night like white noise. “It’s good enough for you?” His lips brush against Potter’s as he speaks, and he can feel Potter’s breaths get heavier and heavier against his mouth.

“Eh, nearly,” Potter huffs nonchalantly, and Draco goes to shove him back with the heel of his palm to the center of that scarred forehead with a _fuck you, you egotistical bastard, you never know what you’ve got until it’s hexing your dick off_ — not necessarily the best idea when they’re adjoined from head to toe, but the past fifteen minutes haven’t been Draco’s most astute moments — when Potter grins like a menace and his hand gropes at the back of Draco’s head and reels him in for a kiss that’s one third laughter, one third clacking teeth, and one third too much tongue. But that kiss, it’s just like them, Draco thinks; ludicrous, clashing, and batshit crazy until three seconds later it transmutes to something heated, volatile, something that wraps warm, knobby-knuckled fingers around Draco’s soul and seems to have no intention of letting go. Potter’s twisted sideways so Draco’s leg is directly across his thighs and he’s got both hands framing Draco’s face, sifting into his hair. Draco’s got a hand on Potter’s neck, thumb against a rapidly beating pulse, and the other — _when?_ — has made it down to his firm stomach underneath that red shirt that’s so unbelievably unfair of him to wear, nobody should look so fit in red. He moans, muffled and soft, into Potter’s mouth.

“Merlin, Ron, break that up before they do it all over my new sofa.”

“ _Me_?! Why me?! I may be the strongest, and the only one with experience in physically fighting Harry — long story, Auror training — but that _doesn’t_ mean —“

“Fuck’s sake, I’ll do it,” Pansy carps. “Wait, holy shit. Is that a Muggle? I’m not delirious, am I?”

Draco draws back from Potter, panting, and his eyes swing to find Pansy first, and then to follow her gaze into the grassy distance below the blue-black sky. Sure enough, an approaching figure in the shape of a man is moving through the fields like a comet against the night sky. “If it is, they’ll be gone soon enough,” he says in a voice with a rough edge, and clears his throat. Potter’s fingers stroke at his hip underneath his untucked shirt. “I was careful about the Muggle-Repelling and Muggle-Disillusioning Charms. There’s no way they’ll make it to us.” He shifts, frowning slightly. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not… unsettled.”

“Yeah, I mean, who the bloody hell wanders through the country on a Friday night?” Weasley mutters, now standing, too.

The man, close enough to be distinguishable in his clumsy amble, is making a beeline toward the house as if it’s his target.

“Maybe it’s just a plastered Muggle?” Pansy says, quieter. "Doesn't know where they're going?" Draco belatedly finds it rather funny that they’ve all suddenly dropped their evening activities in favor of staring at an unsuspecting person.

“He’s passed the boundaries of the charms,” murmurs Draco, squinting.

Potter shoves Draco’s leg off his lap. “I’ve got this,” he says, all business, and rises onto wobbly legs.

“Don’t be ridiculous, you sozzled buffoon,” Draco huffs, holding him back with a fist in the back of his shirt.

“Draco, let go.”

“I know your Savior Syndrome is strong, darling, but there’s no need to get cocky.”

“No,” Pansy mutters, and from the corner of Draco’s eye, he sees her shake her head. “No, fuck, _no_.”

“What?” Draco demands raucously, so he misses it when everybody holds their breaths as the man disappears from sight for a split second before appearing again, this time at the edge of their patio, at which point resounding, startled squeals and yells issue from the group.

“No,” says Pansy, yet to react in accordance with the others, arms crossed as she stares into the grinning face of one post-short-distance-Apparition Clemence Creasey.

“Fuck,” breathes Potter, who reverses until Draco’s hand, bunched in his shirt, is pressed to his lower back.

“I _knew_ it was you guys! I knew it!” Clemence shouts, fist-pounding and making eye contact with them all, one by one. “Hey, blondie.” He waves a hand in Draco’s direction.

“What was —? What were you —?” Hermione begins, and Clem smiles guiltily.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s just — look out there, yeah? Do you see that little yellow light, past that tree?” With their eyes, they all follow the instruction of his bony finger. “That’s my parents’ house. And I was, y’know, _there_ , at my parents’ house, and I heard all this noise — thought I recognized some voices — and my wand — Potter, Weasley, Pans, you all know this — Aurors’ wands are calibrated to help us find our partners if need be, so, y’know. I was getting readings from here.” He nods and smiles at Pansy.

Nobody says a word until Hermione speaks up. “I’m — you would’ve certainly been invited, Clem, if it’d been just the five of us, but this — oh, this is Ginny! I’m not sure you two have met — this is a housewarming party. For her.”

Clemence nods swiftly in recognition, flashes Ginny a genial smile. “We’ve met." He flicks a hand absently at the house. "Hella nice place. Congrats."

Ginny, evidently still baffled by the intrusion — Draco thinks it’s a natural reaction to anyone without extended exposure to the antics of Clemence Creasey — gives him a mildly shameful look. “Have we?”

“Yeah! At Potter’s that one night, you were there with your partner, the one that went on about the Wrackspurts,” Clemence offers. Ginny grimaces at the mention of Luna, but seems to try to recall the event of their meeting. She shakes her head resolutely. Lucky her. “Oh well. The pleasure’s all mine, Ginny. I didn’t mean to intrude. But hi! We’re almost neighbors, man! Well, you and my parents are. We’re pseudo-neighbors, you and I!” He motions between the two of them.

“It’s alright. You’re… fine,” Ginny replies slowly.

“No, you’re not, Clem,” Pansy refutes, storming across the patio toward Clemence and shoving him in the chest with her sharp-nailed hands. “Us being partners does _not_ permit you to use the partner-tracking spell to stalk me.”

Clemence’s eyes widen, hands up in surrender. “I wasn’t stalking you, Pansy, I swear! I just wanted to say hi to all you guys! I _swear_!”

“Let him alone, Pans,” Ginny says softly, and now she’s beside her, a hand on her shoulder. Draco watches as Weasley and Potter exchange a comical look, and for once, he’s an outsider to the Clem-plot. He nestles his chin against Potter’s shoulder. Though her defensive stance is still intact, Pansy brings her arm up to circle Ginny’s waist. Draco should’ve clearly been the one giving her shit all night. “Well,” Ginny continues, scanning her friends seated sporadically around her. She sighs and runs her long fingers through her loose fringe. “Since you’re here, you should stay.” She tugs her wand from her hair, causing the ginger topknot it’d been holding in place to cascade out onto her back, and she charms the Sangria pitcher to pour its dregs into an extra glass. “Because if you don’t mind Draco and Harry’s grotesque necking, you’re welcome to.” She gives him a wary smile. “… Pseudo-neighbor.”

Clemence beams as the glass makes contact with his hand, and he meets Draco’s eyes, then Potter’s. “Draco and Harry’s grotesque necking. Huh. I’ll fucking cheers to that,” he says profoundly, as if expecting a chorus of _hurrah_ s to follow. There’s no chorus, but Weasley cringes silently, Pansy peers back at the tangled mess of Draco-and-Potter with a snort, and Hermione fondly shakes her head.

Draco smiles winningly, conscious of the fact that any serious sentiment he has to share with the group will hardly be taken as such while he’s octopused around Potter, his once-coiffed hair sagging with heat and sweat, and his eyes rimmed red not with drunkenness, no, or even sadness, but with the most curious sort of glee he’s ever known. “Thank you, friends, for your votes of confidence,” he intones mock-caustically, patting Potter’s hard chest with an open palm as if he’s Dolores Umbridge presiding over the Wizengamot with a pink gavel to punctuate the importance of his utterly meaningless but genuine words. “But this will neither be the first nor the last time in my life that I shall go against the grain, against all logic and well-meaning advice, go forth with making a complete tit of myself.” He holds up a hand as if to silence the already silent, bemused onlookers. “So if you all won't mind, I’ll just be over here grotesquely necking with Potter.” When Draco turns his head, Potter’s already looking at him, Hermione’s lanterns reflecting like stars in his eyes, and Draco’s clearly off his rocker so he’s allowed to employ such figures of speech. When Potter leans, Draco smiles and breathes out deep, and it’s too easy to sink into the heat of his mouth, his tongue, his greedy, grappling hands on Draco’s hips.

“But _I_ mind,” Pansy huffs. Draco knows she doesn’t.

“Erm… Clem, shall we talk about magical Beings’ rights in the States? I’m interested in hearing about them,” Hermione says.

“Somebody throw an invisibility cloak over them,” Ginny mutters.

"The Hallows are just a myth, y'know," Clem claims. "Sure, Hermione."

“Please don’t say those words around me,” says Weasley, and it sounds muted, as if spoken through hands caging his face. Ginny begins to ask, “ _what words?”_ when Weasley plows on, “Merlin’s balls, _invisibility cloak._ I didn’t even realize they were shaggin’ ’til Tuesday, and I’ve just been… _realizing things_ ‘cos that just — it takes me time, and I see shit that Harry doesn’t think I do, and — _no_ , Gin. You don’t want to know.”


End file.
